DK Hunters
by Grano Onis
Summary: Ranma is killed by the Lich King and brought back as a Death Knight. Now, he's in an organization known as the UCF to hunt down and eliminate all the undead on the planet. It doesn't take Ranma long to discover that he's in for a wild ride. Just his style
1. Prolouge

**I do not own Ranma, Shampoo, Akane, Kodachi, The Lich King, or any character or object in this chapter.**

**Death Knight Hunters**

**Prolouge**

It was a sunny day in the city of Nerima. School was out for the week, the kids had money to spend at the various restaurants, and all was well.

"RAAAAANMAAAAAA!"

"Ranma Darling! Come to your dear Kodachi!"

"Airen, come back to Shampoo!"

"Ranma, wait up! You left your dinner!"

Well, all most. Ranma was running as fast as he could to get away from his quadruplet of Fiancés (actually, one of them just happens to love him so much she considers herself one), two of which wanted him to spend the evening with them, one of which was trying to get him to finish the dinner she made especially for him, and the other trying to kill him for being with the other three, even if he had no say in it.

He was a tall boy in a red Chinese shirt, and black baggy pants with his black hair tied in a pigtail which flapped like mad in the wind as he dashed across the roof tops with inhuman dexterity, agility, and speed. His breath was barely heavy as this was a normal thing to happen to him on the weeks they had no school, and he continued on trying to lose the madwomen. He looked behind him to see how far they were, and his eyes bulged as he saw the woman who had screamed at him first getting almost in range to smash him with an oversized mallet that was poised over her head. She wore the standard blue school clothes that all women had two wear at their high-school, and had blue hair that hung down to her neck, and her dark blue eyes burned with hatred as just about caught up with him. He made a sudden turn to the right just as she swung, not only causing her to miss, but causing her to lose her balance as she tried to turn with him, something that is not easy to do. She would have succeeded, but the momentum of her mallet pushed her even more off-balance, spinning her, and then, with no control over situation at all, plummeted into the ground screaming.

"_There goes Akane"_ Ranma thought to himself. _"Now to lose the other three."_ He looked behind him again to see, what he thought was the worst of the four, a woman with long dark hair in a pony-tail that reached down past her shoulder in a black leotard wielding a long black ribbon with the effectiveness of a whip.

"Ranma darling, come back with your dear Kodachi!" She crooned loudly as she snapped her ribbon at his waist.

Ranma barely jumped over the ribbon, as well as a dwarven statue that was in front of him, causing the ribbon to wrap around it instead. As it turned out, the statue was not fused to the roof it was on. Before she realized it, she reflexively yanked on the ribbon, and pulled the statue right to her…. And making full, shattering contact with her head, knocking her out. Ranma didn't stay to make a guess as to how long, as he still had two more girls after him; a chinese one wearing a red dress that split all the way up to the hips with a yellow sash belt with purple hair flowing down to her calves, and the other wearing black leggings and a blue gi-like waitress outfit with a golden belt that would hold her gigantic spatula that looked like it could flip human sized pancakes, and had her hair brunette hair flowing halfway down her back, and a white bow that served as a hair-tie. And they both were VERY close.

Ranma immediately back flipped behind them, causing them to skid along the roof-tops trying to change-direction. Unfortunately, or fortunately for Ranma, as they spun around, the huge spatula slammed into the Chinese girl's face causing her to fall backwards off the rooftops. As she fell, she grabbed the back of the other girl's shirt, bringing her down with her. This gave Ranma enough time to get away from the four girls. He hopped rooftop to rooftop for about three miles before he landed in an alleyway to catch his breath.

"I swear," he gasped, "those girls are going to be the end of me."

"_No, they won't."_

Ranma jumped in surprise and quickly spun around in a combat ready stance to see who was behind him, and then immediately froze.

The figure before him just seemed to strike fear into his heart just looking at him. It wasn't just the fact that the man standing in front of him was dwarfing him at about eight feet tall. Under the plated chest and calf armor was what looked like a heavy dark brown leather. The necks of his boots looked to be covered by heavy white fur. Under his shoulder armor flowed a long blackish blue cape that extended past his feet. His large belt was flat and seemed to be studded with meaningless gems in perfect circles all around his belt. His wrist guards had two spikes sticking out at the wrist, revealing huge gloves that made his hand look as if it could crush his head, which Ranma was believing he could. Skulls were everywhere they could be on his armor aside from the chest.

However, the two things that stuck out of the whole appearance were what immobilized him in fear. First was the sword. Past the hilt was what looked like an evil ram skull with its horns wrapped around the hilt of the sword, an evil smile, and a chilling blue mist seemed to dissolve into the air from its eyes towards the ground. From behind the cheeks protruded small curved blades and the blade itself stretched about as long as the man's leg and it also had the same type of blue mist coming out of it. It had runes emblazoned upon it in some language that he couldn't recognize, but he could tell they weren't Asian.

The second thing was the man's helmet. It covered his entire head only faintly showing his nose and mouth, had long spikes that seemed to reach about a foot up all around his head, and waves of wispy white hair draping till about shoulder length. His eyes, however, were what fully did the job. His eyes had no irises. They were an eerie blue with the same mist coming out of his sword evaporating out of his eyes.

"_You are powerful for such a young child."_He said in a deep voice that seemed to penetrate his entire being. _"But your power is wasted on this town. Someone with your potential__ is destined for much greater things. I can aid you in this. I can grant you power to become invincible. Do you wish for this, or are you willing to let your abilities fall to waste here?"_

Ranma blinked. He had barely just met this man, and already he was offering him power? After all the chicanery he had experienced, he had learned to be wary of such offers. "If I were to accept your offer, what's in it for you? Why do you want me?"

The man threw his head back and laughed as if Ranma was not seeing something obvious.

"_Your service to me is all I ask for."_

Ranma blinked again. This man wanted him to serve him? Warning lights were blaring in his head.

"Thanks but, I'm good."

And with that, he jumped up onto the roof top, and left.

At least, that's what he tried to do. Just as he cleared the roof, he felt something wrap around his waist, and sharply pull him back. He twisted in mid-air, and yelped as he just barely avoided the blade with just a nick across his back.

He swung his right foot around to hit his head, but was surprised when he hit his gauntlet instead. His surprise quickly faded as he felt pain shoot through his foot. He had just buried his foot into the spikes on the man's gauntlet. Ignoring the pain, he twisted away from the man, avoiding another swing of his blade barely cutting him in half.

As he landed, he felt a sharp pain shoot up his leg, causing him fall onto one leg. With one foot, he jumped away as the man swung down with his blade with such force that the ground where he hit seemingly exploded. Ranma twisted and spun to avoid the flying debris while he did his best to ignore the pain that persisted in his foot. When he landed, he looked up in time to see the man swinging his sword at his head. He dropped to the ground and lashed out with his left foot, knocking the man's legs out from under him. Ranma jumped out of the way of the huge man, leaped the left wall of the alley, and rebounded off of it, winding his right hand back to knock the man out.

Before he knew what had happened, however, the man was on his gripping Ranma's left shoulder with a powerful vice-like grip, and a pain in his abdomen. Ranma looked down and his eyes widened in horror. The man's sword was buried all the way up to the hilt into his stomach. Ranma began to feel weak as the sides of his vision began to turn fuzzy and black.

"_You had the chance to enter into my service willingly, and if you had, I would have let you retain your memory. Now__ you will be nothing but an empty harbinger of death in my service, Saotome."_

None to gently, he tore the sword from out of Ranma's body, let him fall to the ground, and sheath his sword.

"_How?" _Ranma asked himself in disbelief, _"How could I have lost? Who is he?"_

His hearing began to slowly fade as the man picked him up and slung him over his shoulder.

"Why are you taking me with you?" Ranma weakly inquired. "I'm about to die. I'll be of no use to you."

The man reached his hand out and summoned a purple, eerie portal big enough for him to walk through it with a horse skull on top of it. The portal's entrance was swirling with different shades of purple and black, which played heck with Ranma's head. The man spoke with satisfaction in his voice.

"_You will serve me in death."_


	2. Chapter 1

**I do not own Ranma, and the summery of the death knight involvment on Earth, up until Earth actually gets involved, is based on what happens in World of Warcraft. The rune blades are based on those from the Warcraft world, as well as the citadel and Nakia's species. Everything else is MINE!**

**Thank you Choas Babe for your helpful editing.  
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**Death Knight Hunters**

**Chapter 1**

Ranma began to hear voices through the sea of unconsciousness. "Hey, baby, wake up," "You sure this was a good idea?" "Shut up!" "Hey he's coming around."

Ranma was in what looked like a hospital room. He was in a white, queen-sized bed resting against the wall. On the wall opposite from him was a large wooden door that looked like it could allow the Hulk to walk in comfortably. On the left wall was a marble counter with two sinks that had a mirror about three feet long and two feet wide above each of them that obviously doubled for bathroom medicine cabinets due to the handle that extended from the right sides. On the right side of the room was a built-in closet door that dominated the majority of the wall, ending a few feet from the end of his bed. Also at the end of his bed was a wall-mounted, 20 inch plasma screen TV just below the ceiling.

The room, however, was the last thing that was on his mind. It was the extremely seductive woman that seemed to be straddling him. Ranma immediately did the first thing that came to mind when faced with this kind of situation: run away like a madman screaming apologies.

"AAAAGGGHHH! I'msorryI'msorry!" He managed to get out from under the woman, jump off the bed, and run a few steps towards the door, but immediately face-planted onto the floor when something snagged his ankle. When he looked he saw that it was a really tough black whip, and it was the woman that was holding the end. Now that he had a better look at her, he was even more disturbed.

All-in-all, she had the body every playboy magazine manager would die to have on their front cover. Her flowing black hair reached down just past her exposed shoulders, revealing her tan skin that one would associate to a Native American. Her hourglass body was covered by a black two-piece armor. The lower piece clung to her like the bottom part of bikini that was two to three sizes too small for her, showing off her very shapely legs that had black leather boots reaching half-way up her calf, and looked about as thick as the rest of her armor: about an eighth of an inch. The top half of her armor appeared to be a corset, leaving her body bare. Increasing the sex effect, her eyes glowed with a pure blue that casted a gaze that seemed to just pierce through his clothes and violate his body. The aura around her, however, was what really gave him the willies. She seemed to just radiate the need for sex for days on end as she advanced on Ranma. Bottom line: he was doomed.

"Back off of him, Nakia. He's up and about, and that's all we needed from you."

Ranma looked in front of him to see his savior.

He looked about six foot-five, and wore a dark red uniform of baggy, but also thick and heavy looking, cargo pants and a slightly brighter red, pocket riddled vest of the same material over a black long-sleeve shirt made from some scale material that Ranma didn't recognize. His hair was pure silver as it pooled just past his shoulders, while his eyes, balls of pure luminescent blue that glowed a bit brighter than the woman's, stared expectantly at her, amazingly ignoring the view that should have had him frozen and drooling.

Short of the drooling though, the view did have that affect on the man standing next to him. He wore the same uniform as the first man, and had the same glowing eyes, but that was where the similarities ended. He was a few inches shorter than the man, and had messy black hair in contrast His Savior's silver, and his eyes were glued to the woman's body.

The woman gave a death glare to the first man that didn't even faze him.

"It's not every day I get to work with a death knight that would actually be worth the trouble of banging. Can't I just have him to myself once?" she said in a demanding husky voice.

The man's hand rose to the three-foot long, folded handle of a sword that was in a strange sheath belted to his back that Ranma had somehow missed upon first inspection. The sheath, or sheaths since there were two, were blood red and looked like they each housed a sword with about a foot long blade, which Ranma guessed were connected to each end of the folded handle, and had bright blue runes on its side that seemed to glow almost as much as his eyes. Ranma also noticed that the second man had a small katana and sheath belted to his side as well, but the runes were slightly different.

The woman sighed heavily, causing the second man's eyes to grow a bit.

"Ok, ok, I'll leave him alone. Just don't expect me to keep it up."

And with that, the woman got up, stepped over Ranma, and walked away, swinging her hips and flaunting her…. Tail?

Ranma blinked. Surely enough, she had a deeply tanned, half-inch in diameter tail that started just above her end and ended with its tip just barely touching the floor.

When the door closed, the second man shook his head and looked at Ranma.

"Man, of all the guys here, she decides to try to have sex with the one that doesn't even want to, and is probably gay. Just my luck. He probably wants a piece of this fine bod," he grumbled/boasted as he thumped his chest.

"Hey!" Ranma glared. He didn't want to get beaten half or even all the way to death for sleeping with the wrong, or right, girl. That didn't make him gay."I'm not gay, you un-fit slob, and I've known pigs with better conditioning than you are anyways!"

"Why you!" The black-haired man sputtered as his hand inched towards his swords.

The silver-haired savior harshly slapped the man upside his head, seemingly unconcerened when he fell to the floor with a curse. Ranma marvled at watching someone else get knocked around during an arguement.

"Just shut up, and get back to the crash room." He snarled.

The unfortunate man quickly got up and left the room with a quick salute.

"Yes, sir." He said before leaving Ranma and His Savior alone in the room. The silver-hairedman came up and offered Ranma a hand.

"Sorry about Nakia. Succubae aren't the most comfortable choice of doctors, but she was the closest one on hand when we came here, so we're stuck with her unless we find a new one that's at her skill level," He explained sheepishly with a slight shrug. There was no trace of the harsh manner from before.

Ranma blinked again. _'He's got moodswings like a freaking tomboy!'_

"Is she gonna eat me?" He asked bluntly, getting to what he felt was the most important information.

There was a brief flickering of lights that Ranma assumed was his way of blinking.

"Um, noooo," the stranger said slowly, "not as in cannibalism, if that's what you mean."

"Is she gonna try to drag me off somewhere and then try and kill me if I say no?"

"Nooooo," the stranger drawled, "She won't kill you, but though I wouldn't count on it, I wouldn't be surprised if she did try to drag you off somewhere."

"Swell" Ranma said sarcastically.

He then proceeded to what he felt was the next most important information.

"Uh, by the way, what did you mean by 'since you came here'?" Ranma asked quizzically.

"Are you going to stay lying there on the floor, or are you waiting for an invitation?" The man asked bluntly.

Ranma realized that he had not moved from where he had fell, and graciously accepted the extended hand.

"Now as for your question, she and I came from another planet."

The man sweat-dropped when Ranma immediately face-faulted back down to the ground.

"It's a long story. You'll get the short version in the crash room. For now though, all you have to know right now is that you're a liberated man who is at the moment is a guest member of the AUCF. Your uniform is in the closet."

And with that, he left a very stunned Ranma.

"_Different planet? Liberated? AUCF?"_

These things ran over and over through Ranma's head for about five minutes. Then he realized that he was back on the floor again, and that if he was to get an explanation, he'd have to do as the man said. He quickly got up and opened the closet. Inside was the same uniform the other two guys were wearing: dark red, baggy cargo pants, and vest with the same strange black, long-sleeved shirt; each hanging on separate hangers. Ranma took a quick look at the clothes he was wearing at the moment; the same as he wore before when he... when he….

Ranma blinked as he realized that he didn't remember anything before he opened his eyes to his worst nightmare. As he tried to look back, he realized that he didn't even remember anything about his past. He didn't remember how a large hole had gotten in his shirt, what he was doing at the time, or even where he was born. All he remembered was how to do things, and miscellaneous stuff like that he loved okanomiakie, ramen, and rice, and that he was on Earth.

Ranma paused at that last thought. After finding out that the silver-haired man and the succubus were from another planet, he wasn't even sure about that. He sure as heck hoped he was still on Earth.

Other than that, though, everything else about his past was blank.

After another five minutes, he realized that he still hadn't gotten changed. Whipping on the uniform, he opened the door to find someone waiting for him. It was a girl.

Unlike the other one that tried to rape him, this one looked much friendlier. Other than the fact that it was shaped to fit a girl, the black shirt clinging tightly to her, covering, but still showing off her fine body, and attractive breasts, the uniform she wore was the same as his. She had red hair that pooled just past her shoulders as it seemed to shine as the lights beamed down on it. Her face wasn't as tan as Nakia's, Ranma remembered the man calling her, but it was just enough to show that she had spent considerable time outside. The only flaw in her beauty was her eyes; they were glowing the same blue the guys' that were in his room when he woke up did, but just a bit brighter, giving them a more friendly but still unsettling look.

She looked up at him as he walked out the door, startling her out of a reverie she having before he opened the door. She bowed.

"Hello. I was waiting for you to come out before I went to the crash room." She said nervously.

Ranma, not used to being spoken to by nervous girls and also a bit nervous himself knowing she was waiting for him, hesitantly responded.

"Thanks. Why?"

"I was just told that since nothing would be explained until both of us got to the crash room, I might as well wait for you."

Ranma thought about the logic involved in that statement, and then figured that it made sense.

"Ok" he told her, "But how do we get there?"

She turned and pointed to a diagram emblazoned on the floor that depicted four maps of, what Ranma surmised were the floors of a sort of purple pyramid with a platform where a point should have been at the top, which was labeled as the 4th floor.

The third floor, which had "Dorm Floor" written on it with an arrow with "This is where you are" emblazoned on it pointing at it, was shaped like a square made from dark purple bricks with 9 doors in three of the four walls, and two portals on the floor next to the fourth wall; one red, and the other one green.

Ranma took a quick look around the room and verified that it did indeed how map made it out, with his room being the first door on the wall left of the portals. As he looked at the map again, he saw that the second floor on the map had a square outlined and was labeled "Crash Room", which was also made up of four walls and had two circles against one of the walls; these two gray, and blue. The room itself was as red as the portal, and had four doors; two in the one wall to the left of the portals, and the other two in the other wall to the right of the portals.

Suddenly, something the woman said clicked in his head.

"Wait, you don't know what's going on either?" He asked, to which she shook her head.

"No, all I know is that I was supposed to wait for you before going to the crash room. I don't know where I am, and I don't even remember anything before I woke up."

"You don't remember anything either!" Ranma asked incredulously

She shook her head again.

"No, all I know is my name and things about me. Other than that, I don't remember a thing at all."

"_Good, I'm not going crazy after all. Wait; is that a good thing or a bad thing?"_ Ranma thought to himself.

Ranma's face was blank with thought. What was going on? The woman's face looked uneasy as he seemed to stared at her. After about five minutes, she finally managed to pull herself together.

"Uh, hello, mister?" She asked as she waved her hand in front of his face.

Ranma immediately snapped back to reality.

"Right," he began, "I think we then should get to the crash room and find out what those guys have to say."

She nodded in affirmation and they both proceeded to the grey circle.

"Oh, by the way, I didn't catch your name." Ranma stated.

"Oh, I'm sorry, my name is Fumiko Ookami. What's yours?"

"Ranma Saotome."

* * *

><p>Three men and one woman (who had a tail) looked up to see Ranma and Fumiko tumbling out of the red teleporter, and Ranma landing on top of Fumiko. The two arrivals quickly saw the position they were in and quickly stood up with their cheeks bright red as they pretended that nothing had happened.<p>

When Ranma finally looked at the room he was in, he saw that it looked just like it had been depicted on the map on the floor he was just at, only the map lacked the furniture.

Against the one wall that had been bare on the map, there was a large flat-screen TV that nearly covered the whole wall it seemed to be mounted on. In the middle of the room there was a long, comfy-looking couch that looked like it could fit six people if they squished themselves on it facing the TV. Between the two, there was an X-box 360, a Nintendo Wii, and a PS3 (which seemed to have a bit of dust on it), all hooked up to the Large TV. At the couch's sides were two other couches, which seemed to be exactly alike to the first, and were angled to also face the TV. Ranma looked at the rooms to his left to see that they were in fact locker rooms for men and women to change and shower. The two doors on the right wall, however, had no indications of their purpose.

"**A-HEM**."

Ranma quickly looked to see the current occupants of the room. All the men were wearing the same clothing he and Fumiko were wearing, while the woman, whom he recognized with a shudder as the one that had tried to rape him earlier, still wore the same revealing clothing from earlier.

The three men were standing in a line in front of Ranma and Fumiko, while Nakia was laying across the left couch, playing with the shirt line, which Ranma was doing his best to ignore as it was showing a lot more than any average woman would, or even should, be comfortable with. The silver-haired man who had saved Ranma from losing his virginity was the one between the two other men, and the one on his left being the guy who was ogling Nakia earlier (and he still was over his shoulder). The other one, however, was far different.

He had dark blond hair that that spiked out backwards from his head from under a green camouflaged headband that covered most of his head, and what looked like a greatsword strapped to his back with the hilt sticking out past his right shoulder. His face was calm, but the blue glow of his eyes had a slight, but practically impossible to miss shine of insanity, and an evil grin. It didn't have the hungry look that Nakia's had, but instead, one that was like a senior football player imagining what he was going to do to the new freshman at his school. A quick glance at the pockets on his pants and vest showed that he also carried a lot of stuff with him, but what that stuff was, Ranma was not keen on finding out the hard way, whatever that was. He quickly made a mental note to try to stay on the guy's good side until he knew how to deal with him.

The silver-haired man cleared his throat to make sure that he had Ranma and Fumiko's attention before he spoke.

"Alright, first, the introductory" He said.

"My name is Ravic Eternak. I'm the captain of this organization. You will answer to me, and if you like living, you will do what I tell you when I tell you before you end up dead _again_, this time on the job."

The emphasis on the "again" confused Ranma as he tried to understand what he was implying, but didn't get a chance to dwell on it before Ravic smacked the black-haired man non-too gently up-side the back of the head again.

"This," Ravic continued, "is Toyok Meguncive. He is our long-ranged communications officer, and techno geek."

He then motioned to the man on his right.

"This is Jake Hagner. He's our weapons and demolitions expert. He's also my second-in-command officer, but I'd advise you not to do what he says when we're not in a combat situation."

He then pointed his thumb over his shoulder at Nakia, who was looking at Ranma with the same hungry stare that she gave him when he woke up.

"This, as you discovered, Ranma, is Nakia. She's our company nurse, medical examiner, forensic specialist, and interrogator. Also, as you might have guess from the tail, she is a succubus, so be careful when you're around her."

Ranma began to edge behind Fumiko to try and hide from the scandalous eyes that just seemed to be robbing him of his virginity. Realizing this, Ravic turned to Nakia

"Nakia, now that you've been introduced, go back to the lab and see what you kind find out about that bug we found."

Nakia groaned.

"But they haven't introduced themselves to us yet, or what their jobs are."

Ravic glared at her.

"You already know who they are, and as for their jobs, you'll find out when they get outfitted with the rest of their gear. Now get to the lab and find out more about the bug we found."

Nakia looked like she was about to protest when Jake piped up.

"That's ok, Captain. I'll go ahead and check out that bug for ya."

Nakia immediately glared at him.

"Oh, no you don't. By 'check out' I know you mean find out how well you can burn it with that flamethrower of yours, and if you do, I'd put so much sulfuric acid in your drink, you'll be nothing but a glowing puddle, you maniac."

Ranma stood there amazed as Jake just stood there completely unfazed by the murderous tone she was giving him, to which he just shrugged.

"Oh why must you mistrust me, Nakia." He said with obnoxiously fake sorrow. "If you don't want me to burn it, though." He said with a smart-alecky grin growing on his face. "I can go ahead and see how many times I can shoot it before it dies. To be honest, though, burning it is much more fun."

Nakia got up and growled at him for a moment as Toyok eyes bulged at her quivering chest, and then she immediately stalked away to the left door on the right wall, grumbling in a very dark tone.

Ravic smacked Toyok up-side the head again, snapping him out of his lustful trance, and then addressed Ranma and Fumiko.

"All right, now that she's gone, why don't you too introduce yourselves for formality's sake, and then tell us what you can do? Saotome, let's have you go first."

Ranma nodded, grateful that Ravic had gotten rid of the succubus.

"My name's Ranma Saotome. I'm really good martial artist; I can pluck fish out of water without getting my hands wet, jump onto a building from the ground, dodge almost anything, and…"

Ranma pondered for a moment about his list of abilities to see if he missed anything. His head perked up as he remembered something else.

"I can also do this" he said as he brought his up his hand, palm up, and conjured a yellow ball of energy. At least, that was his intent.

Instead of the usual yellow he was expecting, it was a deep dark blue with ghostly wisps of energy flowing in, around, and out of it in a haunting manner. Startled, Ranma quickly threw it away, sending it slamming into the wall (not the one with the TV, thankfully) exploding and throwing everyone flying back other than Ravic who stared emotionlessly at the blast.

When the smoke cleared, Ranma was amazed to see that the furniture had not moved an inch, and the TV screens were only slightly shifted from the blast. The only real indicator that the explosion had taken place was the black soot circle where he had thrown the ball, and everyone, other than Ravic, was sprawled out on the floor. The sprawled out people were staring at Ranma in amazement while Ravic looked at the blast-circle pondering something.

Ranma gave out a nervous chuckle.

"The ball was supposed to be yellow, and not as explosive. I didn't expect-"

"DANG MAN!"

Ranma looked at Toyok, surprised at his quick recovery.

"Remind me not to piss you off!" Toyok said.

Ravic sighed, walked up to him, and smacked him upside the head, sending him flying back up onto his feet and landing right on his face.

"Ok, so we have a martial artist working with us that can throw exploding energy, and can get around quickly."

Immediately, he whirled around to Fumiko, who froze in the process of standing up.

"What, pray-tell, can you do?"

Fumiko hesitated.

"uuuuuuuuhhhhhh, I don't think I can really do anything that's useful"

Ravic gave a small sigh of frustration.

"Look, everyone here can do something well, otherwise they wouldn't be here. Since you're here, you can obviously do something well, so what is it that you can do?"

Fumiko scratched the back of her head nervously.

"Weeeeeeell, I am a pretty good shot with a rifle. Other than that, I don't really-"

She didn't get farther when Ravic whipped around to Jake, who was standing again fiddling with a strange metal box that looked just a bit more dangerous than Ranma was used to dealing with. At least, more than he was comfortable with, he assumed due to his lack of memory. After all, no one could survive being around explosives that were constantly being thrown at them every day…..Right?

"Jake," Ravic began ordering, "Get one of your big pistols, the most accurate and powerful rifle you think she can handle, a katana, and that pair of gloves with the retractable blades you made."

Jake looked at Ranma and Fumiko with doubt.

"I dunno, sir. My big pistols pack a lot of punch, and my more accurate and heavy hitting rifles would probably-"

He didn't get very far either before Ravic began giving his glare again.

"Big pistol, kick-a rifle, a katana, and the wolverine gloves; got it sir. Be back in a flash." He managed spit out.

He quickly zipped on into the blue teleporter, and vanished in a swirl of blue smoke.

Ravic then turned to Toyok, who had just gotten back up from his face-plant.

"Toyok, go and tell Doc that we need two more bikes; one for a skilled, and dedicated martial artist, and the other for a sniper, and before you ask, no you may not have any of his beer, whiskey, moonshine, vodka, wine, or anything else he has that has any alcohol conveniently added into it unless you would like to clean the Citadel again. You work last time was poor, and Nakia is still upset about the stain on the floor of her lab you couldn't get to due to your convenient running out of soap."

Toyok's mouth opened to protest, but then, to Ranma's surprise, demonstrated that he had more intelligence than he would normally have associated with one that had the perve's previous behavior, and walked to the blue teleporter with his head hung down in defeat.

When he disappeared into the blue void, Ravic then turned to the remaining two occupants and motioned to the couches.

"Have a seat while I explain what's going on here, and hopefully answer a few questions before you try and do or say anything stupid to get yourself killed as a result."

Ranma and Fumiko complied, and promptly sat down next to each other on the couch facing the TV while Ravic walked around to the TV, pulled what looked like a pointer from behind the flat-screen, and clicked a button. The TV immediately responded by showing someone that Ranma immediately recognized, causing his heart to freeze instantly.

"That's the guy who stabbed me!"

Ranma and Fumiko turned to each other, startled that they had said that at the exact same time. Ravic nodded as if he had seen this before and was used to it.

"This is the man who killed us all, and turned us into what we are now. He is known as the Lich King, but known to only us and a few other people, his real name is Arthas."

Fumiko's hand shot straight up.

"Wait, what do you mean 'killed us all'? I mean, we're alive and breathing aren't we?"

At this, Ravic laughed loudly, surprising both Fumiko and Ranma, who looked at each other wondering what was so funny.

"Now that" Ravic said, "is a point that doctors have been disputing over for years. You see, though we are alive and breathing, as you put it, we are in all actuality, dead."

Ranma promptly face-faulted while Fumiko just looked at Ravic with a confused look on her face.

"You'll understand after I explain." Ravic said.

He clicked the pointer again, only to sweat-drop at what showed up next.

"**A long time ago, in a galaxy**

**Far, far away."**

He immediately clicked the pointer again, skipping the next slide while he mumbled something that Ranma couldn't quite catch. He did manage to hear something about shooting Jake in his spleen again and pouring-

"_wait a minute."_ Ranma thought to himself, _"is it even humanly possible to for someone to survive getting shot there?"_

Shrugging it off, he looked at the next slide which was a picture of Arthas standing over a dead body.

"Ignoring the corniness, yes, this all starts off on another planet, and yes, that would make him an alien, and no, he is still human….ish."

He looked at Ranma and Fumiko's blank expressions.

"Again, you'll understand after I explain."

"When he rose to power on his home planet, he began raising an army of undead, and by undead, I mean as in zombies, ghouls, skeletons, and stuff like that, so if you think of vampires and werewolves when you hear that word, forget it. To lead this army, he brought back soldiers of great skill. Devoted paladins, skilled archers, able bodied footmen, strong knights, agile rouges and thieves: basically, the elite, and he turned them into HIS elite: the Death Knights."

With another click a slide popped up showed five citadels that resembled the one Ranma was in headed towards the Earth.

"Eventually the death knights revolted, and the Lich King had to run away to built a new army. He only had one place he could go to, and that didn't sit well with him. He figured that he might need a fall-back plan in case his campaign failed. So, he decided to go big. He left the planet and went to one that had promise and one that he figured that he could have more success at. The planet he chose was Earth."

The next slide showed a sick figure Lich King laughing maniacally as undead forces fought military forces all over the world.

"His forces were at a severe disadvantage at first since he wasn't accustomed to fighting forces with the modern weaponry you all have today. Due to this, his only military success was where he first landed and began his invasion: Russia. Nevertheless, he managed to do some serious global damage. In fact, as you'll find out on your future assignments, he nearly managed to conquer the whole continent of Asia completely after about 5 years. At that point, he was actually beginning to turn the tide of the war he started when something unexpected happened."

The next slide was the same as before, but it was a backside view, and showed a death knight sneaking up on the Lich King.

"Me and four other death knights had formed a team to hunt the Lich King down and kill him. We were almost successful too, but apparently, he had an escape plan and he ran away back to our home planet."

Ranma then piqued up.

"Wait, you came from the same planet Arthas came from?"

Ravic winced.

"Yes, I did, and yes, that would make me an alien too. However, please don't use the Lich King's real name. It's confidential, and also sort-of bad karma among us death knights."

"Sort of like how everyone is afraid of Voldemort's name from _Harry Potter_?" Fumiko suggested.

Ravic sweatdropped.

"No, we hate it."

At that, Ranma and Fumiko blinked as Ravic continued his slide-show, making no effort to hide his eagerness to get away from the topic.

The new slide was an actual picture instead of stick figures. It showed Ravic with a surprised look on his face as he opened a stone coffin with runes all over it that resembled the ones on his scabbard.

"This is where it was the Lich King's turn to surprise us. When me and the team came to hunt the Lich King down, we had expected him to make an army just out of ghouls, zombies, abominations, gargoyles, and the like. What we didn't expect him to do was to make some more death knights, especially after the revolution. Those death knights are you guys." Ravic said pointed at Ranma and Fumiko.

At this, both of the indicated party's jaws dropped and stunned silence filled the air as Ravic let this bit of information sink in, all the while, Ranma's mind whirled. He was a living dead-man brought back by the one who waged war against the entire planet!

"Luckily for us, you weren't at all influenced by him, meaning that if we brought you guys back from the dead, you wouldn't be taking orders from him. Despite that, a most of us still wanted to leave you guys dead though."

At this, Ranma and Fumiko face-faulted.

Ranma immediately recovered.

"WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO LEAVE US DEAD!" he yelled.

"Because you were created by the Lich King, and some of the team figured that he still had some plan for you guys, despite the fact that he left you."

Fumiko, whose face clearly showed that she was still trying to grasp being dead, piqued up again with obvious fear in her voice.

"But why in the world would we even do anything he said? You said he didn't influence us, so we can't be used for any plan of his, right?"

Ravic sighed like a teacher trying to explain something seemingly simple to an ignorant student.

"First, when the average death knight is brought back, you don't have a choice, BUT to do what he says. Your will becomes his will. You don't question, you don't protest, you just obey."

Ranma's eyes widened. He couldn't possibly imagine serving someone because his will wasn't his own. The very idea horrified- no, _terrified_ him beyond belief.

"But you said that he hadn't influenced us at all." Ranma protested.

"We didn't know that until we brought back one just to see how far the Lich King had gotten. Once we realized that he hadn't influenced you all, we still were a bit nervous about bringing you guys back."

"Why?" Fumiko asked.

"That's what brings me to the second reason most of us wanted you all to stay dead; just because he can't mentally command you, doesn't mean he can't use you in other ways. Manipulation though controlling your situation is something he is very good at. The mental thing is just the easiest. However, you're alive, and your will is your own, so don't freak out like that, ok? Now, moving on as to why you're alive."

Ignoring their frightned and nervous faces, he clicked the pointer again, this one showing a horde of zombies chasing a group of people.

"The Lich King left not only a plague of undeath behind when he ran, he left a group of new commanders to lead them. We managed to take out most of the high ranking commanders, and from what we're able to guess, he didn't leave a list of who would actually command the plagued soldiers in their absence. Thanks to that, we've found that different undead armies will most likely attack each other, which has made our job, and the military's, much easier. That doesn't mean that they aren't easy to get rid of. To this day, large undead armies still hide among the populace, and in undead territories that the major military forces are still fighting to destroy and are having a heck-of-a hard time doing so. Russia, though being the origin of the Lich King's attack, is one of the 'lucky' ones that only have to deal with the underground undead."

He switched to another new slide that depicted him and four other death knights, not all of them human Ranma noticed, holding their swords in a circle with their tips touching.

"The team and I decided to take each of the five citadels the Lich King took with him, along with the death knights inside, and help the planet eliminate the undead threat with each of us handling the seven continental regions. Together, we all formed the Undead Containment Force, or UCF for short.

Taking command of our own sections of the planet, we handle our own problems of undead forces differently. I, obviously being in charge of Asia, have divided this region by its countries, and have assigned different wings of the Asian UCF to handle different counties, and yes, the Lich King made enough Death Knights for me to be able to do that."

Ravic turned the TV off, put the pointer back in its place, and continued.

"Those of us currently operating in this citadel are known to the world as the AUCF; Asian Undead Containment Force-"

"Who handle the basic grunt work of the common police when we're not killing zombies."

They all turned to see Jake coming out of the teleporter with the stuff he was sent to get in his arms. The katana was sheathed in an old fashion scabbard, and had a classic wire-wrapped handle. The gloves however were different. They were made of strange black leather, and were big enough to fit all the way up to Ranma's elbows, and had three silver slits in-between each knuckle. Ravic immediately walked up to him and took the katana and gloves from him.

"Thank you Jake for your unnecessary input" he said deadpanning, "moving on, you two are required to carry these weapons with you at all times." He said indicating the gloves he was handing to Ranma and the katana he was handing to Fumiko.

"They are not ever to leave your sight, and must always be within hands reach, especially after you rune them."

Ranma blinked.

"After we ruin them?" He asked quizicly.

Ravic face-palmed.

"After you RUNE them. You will put runes on these weapons, marking them as yours, and empowering them with abilities specific to you. Each rune is different for each death knight, so there is no confusion as to whose it belongs to."

Fumiko raised her hand.

"Fumiko, you don't have to keep raising your hand unless I either ask you to, or you're trying to tell me something while everyone else is trying to as well. This isn't school."

Fumiko hesitated, then asked the question that was pestering her mind.

"Why is it that I've got a sword, and Ranma has gloves?"

"Because snipers usually don't get into positions where they have to fight melee."

Fumiko's spine immediately went erect.

"Sniper!" she screeched.

Ravic sighed very heavily this time while Ranma and Jake held their ears after Fumiko's loud and high-pitched outburst.

"If all you can remember about your abilities is that you are a good shot, then you are most likely a skilled sniper, and if you don't want to deal with that, you can go ahead and leave, and then you won't have to worry about it. I would advise staying with us for awhile, though, so you figure out and get used to everything that's changed in the world, but the choice is yours."

Fumiko thought about this for awhile and then simply nodded, though it was clear that she was nervous about her assigned role.

"I think I'll give it a shot."

Ravic simply nodded, then grabbed a large sniper rifle from Jake and handed it to her.

"This weapon you will also rune, but what you do with it, I don't care so long as it stays intact and still in working order."

Before the shaken Fumiko could respond, Ravic grabbed a very large handgun from Jake's hand, and handed it to Ranma.

"Same thing with this, only I expect you to actually use this instead of only going hand-to-hand. More often than not, taking out your target from afar is better than getting close and personal."

Ravic turned to Jake.

"Take them to the workshop, help them rune their weapons, then come back here to wait for Toyok to come back. Knock on my door then to get today's assignments, and this time, please don't slip a bomb in the forge they're about to use. It's hard enough to get the stuff we need to fix those things without you blowing them up."

Jake threw him a smart-aleck salute.

"Yes, sir, may I use gasoline instead?"

"Uuuggghhh" Ravic rolled his eyes and shook his head exasperation as he walked off into the right room on the right wall.

Jake turned to the two nervous recruits with a smart alek grin that seemed natural to his face.

"Don't worry, he's always like that. It comes with having to handle the paperwork we cause him."

Ranma and Fumiko both sweat-dropped and Jake turned to the blue portal and entered it. Fumiko looked at Ranma with a pleading look.

"This is a bit much to take in, isn't it?" Fumiko said and she struggled to hold the sniper rifle and sword at the same time.

"Well," Ranma said not having any trouble at all with his weapons, "There's not much we can do about it. We might as well go along with it, and hope for the best. Besides, if you don't want to deal with it, he said we can leave if we wanted."

Fumiko then spoke in a soft voice. "I don't know. I just don't know if I can deal with this."

Ranma walked up to her, put a hand on her shoulder, and spoke confidently.

"Look, if you have any trouble, I'll help."

Fumiko looked up at him in amazement.

"You'd do that?" she asked.

Ranma nodded.

"Hey, so far, you're the only one I'm comfortable talking to. I don't really know Ravic, but I'm pretty sure he's not the kind of guy who you want to have a conversation with, Jake really seems to make me jumpy, Toyok is most defiantly a perve, and I sure as heck don't want to be in the same room as Nakia. You're the only real normal person I've seen in this whole place, and that counts for something."

Fumiko nodded, not exactly comfortable about the reasoning, but at least understood what he was saying.

"Well," she said, "If what Ravic said is right, and the world's changed so much, and I don't think I'm really ready to deal with it. I guess I'm just a bit nervous about that."

Ranma shrugged.

"No sweat. It's not like the world could be in that bad of shape. If things get hectic, just come to me and I'll see what I can do."

Fumiko hesitated, and then nodded, deciding that she could trust him.

"Ok, I will." She said simply

Ranma nodded.

"Oh by the way," Ranma said, remembering something, "are my eyes glowing?"

Fumiko's eyes flickered.

"Uh, yeah, they are." She responded.

"Like, glowing the same way everyone else's eyes are?" Ranma persisted.

"Yeah, they are." She repeated.

"Oh, great." Ranma replied sarcastically, "This is going to take some getting used to."

"Yeah. I guess it's something all...death knights...have in common." Fumiko said reassuringly, though she was uncomfortable using the word, "death knight" to describe herself.

"Yeah," Ranma agreed. "Well, no use worrying about things we can't change."

Fumiko smiled and nodded firmly.

"Right." She said with new confidence.

"Alright, now let's get going. I want to see what's going on out there, and from the sounds of it, we might get a chance to see it real soon." Ranma said clapping his hands together eagerly.

Fumiko smiled even more, and they both went into the portal after Jake to see what was in store for them.


	3. Chapter 2

**I do not own Ranma, rune blades (I do own the individual ones and their said abilities other than the glow thing), or the rune forges. I also do not own any of the undead species mentioned in this chapter other than Azhule's (whose species was inspired by the Crypt Lords from Warcraft III). And finally, though I do own the citadel in this story, they are taken from the citadels from the Warcraft world.**

**Death Knight Hunters**

**Chapter 2**

When Ranma and Fumiko exited the portal, their eyes widened in surprise. The blue teleporter they came out of had come out of sat at the base of the wall of a big blue room.

"_Check that" _Ranma thought to himself in amazement, _"an ENOURMOS blue room!"_

He had to guess that it was about the size of three American football fields set right next to each other. In it, there were vehicles of all kinds; dune buggies, humvees, tanks, fighter jets, a couple that looked like robots, APCs, and a lot more that he didn't recognize. It was a garage that every mechanic dreamed of. Well, almost. The skull depictions, skull engravings, and skull features that adorned the vehicles put a damper on the dream, but the collection was still astounding.

"Hey! Over here!"

The two recruits looked over to see Jake waving his arms. He was at the left corner of the room next to four strange skull shaped forges with a strange blue glow in their open mouths, each sitting right next to each other.

Ranma and Fumiko both walked up to him, weapons in hand, to see what they were supposed to do. Jake greeted them with an energetic smile.

"Welcome to Weapon Runeing 101. Your instructor is Jake Hagner." He said in a teacher mocking voice.

He picked up a sword he had leaning against one of the forges, and continued on his mocking tone.

"Runeing weapons is easy. You just simply take the weapon you want to rune, put it in the forge, and focus your soul into the sword, like so."

Jake placed the sword he had on a small platform inside the forge, took a step back, held out his hand, spread his feet apart, all the while, focusing on the sword. After about two seconds, the sword began to rise and turn as a strange purple stream wisped out to the sword from Jake's outstretched hand. Strange runes began to form on the sword, shining brightly blue as they did. The whole process took about 10 seconds before he was done, the purple energy returning to his hand, and the sword setting down gently on the platform.

"Viola. That easy"

He took the sword from the forge and showed it to Ranma and Fumiko, who had been silent the whole time as they had watched the whole thing in fascination. The sword had strange foreign runes etched on it, while near the hilt glowed a picture of a roaring flame, which Ranma assumed was what deemed it Jake's.

"Ok now, let's see you do it…. uuhh," Jake said pointing uncertainly.

"Ookima," She said for him, "Fumiko Ookima."

"Right right, I never really pay attention to those intros. Ok, Ooks, let's see you do it." he said motioning for her to do so.

The silence that followed was uneasy. Ranma looked at Fumiko and was surprised. She was giving an evil glare at Jake that seemed like it could melt ice as she stood there fuming.

"My name," she growled, "is not Ooks. You can call me Fum, or Fummy, but if you call me Ooks again, I will shoot you in the head so many times, there will be less of it than there was of JFK's head after his assassination."

Ranma scooted away from her surprised at how the shy girl he was used to changed to a vengeful monster as her as her red hair began to stand on end, cackling with anger. Jake, however, simply shrugged it off.

"Whatever, Fums, just show us you can rune your weapon already. We haven't got all day."

Fumiko bristled as she walked up to the forge that Jake had just use. After setting down her rifle, she drew her sword, nearly slammed it into one of the forges, and did what Jake had just demonstrated. However, unlike what had happened with Jake, the purple energy that flowed from his hand shot out of Fumiko's, and the sword seemed to jump into the air and become a blur as it spun. After about three seconds, the sword was still spinning as it landed, and the runes on it were extremely smudged.

Jake sighed in minor frustration.

"You don't want to be angry as you do it. When your emotions are extreme when runeing, they can make the runes on your weapon smudged, the weapon won't be identified as yours, and it won't work right. Luckily, you can repeat the process, and the smudges will go away, so calm down and do it again, otherwise, the captain will be pissed at me for not having you do it correctly."

Ranma blinked. "Uh, and that's a very bad thing?" he guessed.

Jake shrugged. "Not really. I just don't want to have to deal with him being pissed at me, and possibly shooting me again."

Ranma and Fumiko both blinked, that latter's anger vanishing as a certain word stuck out.

"Again?" They both asked slowly.

Jake nodded.

"Yeah, us being dead means it's a lot harder to kill us. The only body part that still counts as an instant kill is the head. The same pretty much goes with most undead, but they can be hard to find unless you're looking for the leaders who are mostly humanoid."

"Actually," Ranma said slowly, a little disturbed at this piece of information, "when I asked if it was a bad thing, I was referring to the smudged runes bit."

"Oh." Jake responded. "That's right, I forgot to tell you. When you use a weapon that has your rune on it, your runes start to develop. If they're smudged, then the only thing they're going to do is decorate your blade."

Ranma nodded in understanding, but one thing was still bothering him.

"Hey, why do we even have to rune our weapons? It's not like we're going to get them mixed up, are we?"

Jake face-palmed.

"As your runes develop, they gain certain abilities. For instance, all my runed weapons can cause explosions when I want them to. Toyok's can cause some sort of thingy that messes up electrical stuff, and the Captain's..."

Jake paused as he thought about this. Finally, he simply said,

"I don't know."

Ranma's jaw dropped.

"What do you mean you don't know?" he asked incredulously.

Jake shrugged.

"None of us have ever actually seen the Captain do anything special with his blade, or his guns. Come to think of it, I don't think anyone's even seen him fight other than the guys he came with. Most of the time, he's in his office handling the paperwork, keeping us from getting into any actually real trouble with the local cops and paladins, and helping call the shots during our assignments."

"You mean he doesn't even fight, and we have to do what he says!" Ranma yelled.

Jake shook his head.

"Oh he can definitely fight; otherwise, the Lich King would still be here, and I don't think a guy powerful enough to command a planet-invading undead army would run away from a couple of guys pointing guns at him."

Ranma paused. What Jake said made sense, but he still didn't like the fact that he was going to be fighting while Ravic told him while he sat in his office taking calls and drinking tea all day.

"Also, keeping us out of major trouble with the local cops and paladins is sort-of an all-time job for him. Last week, the captain actually pulled three all-nighters in a row of paperwork and calls just to keep us from getting sued again." Jake added.

Ranma's and Fumiko's jaws dropped at this.

"What did you guys do?" Fumiko asked.

"Uh...we...accidentally...started a bar fight...and wound up..blowing up...said bar." Jake said uncomfortably.

There was an uncomfortable silence as Ranma and Fumiko looked at Jake incredulously as he scratched the back of his head. At the same time, Ranma was reevaluating his view of Ravic. Considering the trouble Jake was able to cause, and possibly the trouble the succubus could as well, covering up for these guys possibly could require enough work to keep one out of the action. Needless to say, his respect for Ravic quickly went up.

"Anyway," Jake said quickly, eager to be moving on from this topic, "Try runing your sword again, Fums. This time, try to be a bit calm."

Fumiko gave a start as she snapped out of sorting all this new information.

"What? Oh, right, right."

She turned back to the forge and raised her arms to try again. The sword lifted again, slowly this time, and purple energy wisped to the floating and turning sword, the runes etching onto the blade just as they did with Jake's. When the process was finished, she removed her sword from the forge, and held it out for everyone, including herself, to examine. The runes covering it were a bit different from Jake's, but they were still in the same foreign language. The etching near the hilt, however, depicted two wolves, whose heads crossed each other, howling at a moon.

Jake looked at the blade thoughtfully.

"That's an interesting identifier." He said indicating the blue etching of the wolves. He then turned to Ranma.

"Ok, your turn." He said indicating the next forge.

Ranma walked up to the rune forge, set his gun down, took off both gloves, and was about to put them both in the forge when Jake interrupted.

"Only one weapon at a time, otherwise the runes don't work right."

Ranma looked at him, nodded, put the right glove back on, and placed the other in the forge. He stepped back, outstretched his hand, and began to focus his soul into the glove. It rose, the energy left his hand and reached for the glove. Ranma then smelled something.

***FWOOOOOOOOOOOSH***

Suddenly, the inside of the forge erupted with fire, sending Ranma flying. He slammed into the ground and was instantly dazed.

When he began to return focus, he saw that he was covered in soot. Amazingly, his clothes were just fine, but that didn't concern him. When he looked at what had happened, he saw Fumiko sitting on the floor breathing heavy and eyes wide with fear, and Jake laughing like a maniac. It took a few seconds, but after remembering what Jake had asked Ravic earlier and the smell he had noticed, he put two and two together and realized what had happened.

Ranma then immediately exploded.

"YOU PUT GASOLINE IN MY FORGE!"

This only caused Jake to laugh even harder.

"Darn right I did! Man was that funny! You should have seen your face. Your eyes were as big as dinner plates. AHAHAHAHAHA!"

He fell on the ground clutching his stomach as he rolled around laughing. His laughing died however when he looked up to see a very angry Ranma standing over him with a large ball of dark energy gathering in his hand.

"You think that was funny, eh?" Ranma growled. "Well try some of this why don't ya!" and he threw the ball of energy at him. Unfortunately, Ranma had forgotten about the new explosive power that came with his new chi spheres.

Fumiko sweat-dropped as she saw Jake who, turning out to be faster than he looked, had gotten up and began running away, but only got about a foot away and was still sent flying through the air. He managed to land on his feet, but he still skidded on the floor a bit with his arms flailing. Ranma, on the other hand, was not so lucky.

Ranma was completely engulfed in the explosion before the shock-wave sent him flying into a one-man bi-plane, putting a large enough dent in it to make it unusable for quite awhile.

***BOOOOOOM!***

However, it was evident that the plane was meant for bombing due to the large explosion the sent him flying.

***WHAM!***

And slammeing into the ceiling.

"Oi, knock it off, will ye! I've still got ta finish the two new bikes for the new biters, and it's hard enough to make it on such short notice without ya'll making all that racket!"

Fumiko looked to see a graying old man wearing the same red and black uniform all of them were wearing, only his jacket and pants were splattered with oil stains. What was odd about him was what he was using as a staff; a giant, runed, double-ended wrench.

The man, however, stopped when he saw Fumiko.

"Well, now. Yew must be one of the noobies. Ya runed ya weapon yet?" he demanded.

Fumiko nodded slowly.

"Let me see it." he demanded again.

Fumiko hesitated.

"It's alright." Jake said, having regained his balance. "That's Doc, our mechanic, engineer, pilot, and handler of whatever alchohol we manage to get our hands on. He just needs to see what your runes are so he can make your bike actually belong to you."

Assured, Fumiko drew her blade, and handed it to Doc, who inspected it critically.

"Pretty runes. Not ones that I would expect from a death knight, but then again, the last girl one I'd seen was 8 years ago. Ah well, not that I care."

He handed Fumiko back her blade, and turned to Jake expectantly.

"Now, where's the other noob?"

***WHAM!***

Everyone turned to look to see Ranma laying face-first on the floor where he had fallen from the ceiling.

"Right there." Jake said causally.

Doc glared at Jake.

"Yew put another bomb in the forges, sonny? What I tell yew about that? Those things cost more than yo guts would on E-bay!"

Jake laughed hysterically at this.

"No, I used gasoline this time. Not as big an explosion, but definitely more funny then the look that was on Naruto's face. Man that one was PRICELESS!"

Doc glared at Jake some more, then went to inspect the forge Ranma had just used.

"Hm, few burn marks and some soot. At least yew din' put any cracks in it this time. Ah right, I'll let ya off this time, Jake. Just make sure yew get it cleaned up bafore it gets used again. An hurry up wit his runes will ya?" He said gesturing at Ranma," I need to see his bafore this afternoon."

"Why before this afternoon?" Fumiko asked.

"Bacause I got a headache this morning that felt like mah head was gonna rot out."

"WHAT!" Jake shouted with concern. "You sure that it wasn't a hang-over from the booze you had last night?"

"Nah, those feel like mah head's splitting apart. I mean what I said about my head feelin' like it was rottin'."

"Come on, guys, we gotta get all your weapons runed FAST!"

Jake snatched Ranma's and Fumiko's arms and drug them back over to the forges with a freighted look in his eyes.

"What's going on? Why is having a headache so bad?" Fumiko asked fightened by this sudden change in demeanor of the man who had just rigged Ranma's forge to explode.

"Having a regular headache isn't bad, but when Doc gets an ache anywhere that feels like it's rotting, we usually get work to do." Jake explained.

"Wouldn't that a good thing?" Ranma asked nervously.

"When it's an ache in his toe or finger like it usually is, then yes. Those aches usually mean that a small undead bustle is coming up. He's never had a rotting HEADache before, and if he feels that he needs to get your stuff ready before this afternoon, then I might not get to put the finishing touches on my new tank before our next mission!"

* * *

><p>The creature stood before its five masters, eager to hear what they had to say about his report.<p>

"Your bugs have managed to latch on to a few humans, as you have planned, but the humans have noticed their over all presence, and are working remove them. When they realize that they aren't so easy to get rid of, they will begin to take drastic action. You better have a plan for this."

The creature was basically human, aside from the spikes sticking out of its back, scythe-like fingers, and pure-purple eyes. His masters sat before him in an arc, each with only their black gloved hands and robed legs showing, aside from the one who had just spoken.

Sarach was the name of the one who sat to the center seat's far right, the creature recalled about the leader who had just spoken. Not many people met with the five leaders other than the high-ranking messengers. Sarach's hood hid her eyes, but there was a blue frost emanating from her head, revealing the face of a skull. The only way the creature could tell that she was female was by her hollow voice that seemed to pierce him as she spoke.

"Indeed." Said a deep voice, which belonged to Kaldorn if the creature remembered his name right, who sat to the immediate right of the center seat. "If the humans begin to take serious action about these bugs, they may make a connection to our organization, and the whole operation will fall apart."

The creature bowed his head.

"Absolutely, masters. The exterminators will seemingly kill my insects, when in all actuality, they are merely sedating them, putting them to sleep, and allowing for their bites to be much more effective. You see that they are the perfect tool for your plans. I already have another batch ready for you to-"

"Not yet, Azhule. You have not completed your assigned task." Spoke one on the center seat's far left, Kerra, who was also female.

The creature hissed irritably.

"They already have hosted a number of the populace. What else is there?"

"Do you not remember, fool!" snapped Sarach. "You must infest three entire blocks, and then destroy the local paladin office building before we are satisfied that they will do. You only have infested one block, and your hold on it is unstable, at best."

Azhule backed away in fear. "Forgive me, masters. I am just pleased that my proposition is making progress. I will complete my task, and leave that office in ruins. You will see."

"Yes, Azhule." Said Solginn, who sat in the seat left of the center. "We will see. Now go, and do not return until you have completed the first half of your task, or you have something pressing to inform us of."

The creature bowed, and then left, his feet echoing as he departed.

Sarach spoke as soon as Azhule was out of hearing range.

"His plan will fail."

"Don't be so hasty, Sarach. These bugs he has made are clever idea. If he can have them evade epidemical proportion, he might actually succeed" Said Kerra.

"True, he may be able to infest the blocks, but that doesn't mean he will succeed in removing the paladins. That is impossible for his plan to accomplish. We knew this when we allowed him to put it into action" Said a Kaladorn voice.

"Yes, but the purpose of allowing him to do so was to see how well it worked. If it works even half as well as he proposes it will, it will be useful indeed" said Solginn, who then turned to the one sitting in the center seat. "What do you think, my Lord?"

All the beings shifted to look at the occupant of the center seat. He answered in a deep, hollow, rasping voice completely void of emotion.

"Let his plan run its course. We will observe the outcome, and then make our decision."

Satisfied, the other four leaders left it at that.

"With that done, there is something else that I would like to address. Kerra," Sarach said, her voice becoming expectant, "What is this I'm hearing about a city which no one is returning from."

The room became silent as the rest of the leaders, other than the center one, looked expectantly at Kerra.

"ummmmmm…"She began.

"Kerra," Kaladorn spoke "You only get that grin on your face when you have done something, pleasing, shall we say. What is this city you have built?"

"Such shrewd acumen as always, Kal. It's a little project I've undertaken to see exactly how humans can become, as they say, turned on."

* * *

><p>Ranma stood in the middle of the dormitory floor admiring his gloves. As it turned out, the silver slits in his gloves were actually blades that could extend about his forearm's length. The gloves themselves had the same runes on them that the blades did, but they didn't glow as much as the ones on the blades. On the top of his gloves was a depiction of a horse rearing with its eyes burning in a roaring flame.<p>

Ranma crouched in a fighting stance and threw a quick, firm punch into the air. The gloves fit snuggly on his hands and forearms, and the blades felt like a true extension of himself. He began throwing punches and kicks, wrecking imaginary enemies with his claws and legs, striking faster and faster until his arms and legs became nothing but blurs as he began performing katas that he seemed to remember subconsciously. He continued this for about an hour before he became aware of somebody watching him.

He turned to see Fumiko standing there, eyes wide with amazement and admiration. When she noticed that Ranma had noticed her, she snapped out of her amazement and shyly walked up to him with her head down nervously.

"That was great." She said in a nervous voice.

Ranma shrugged.

"Eh, it's nothing really. I think I did this a lot when I was...alive." He said uneasily, still trying to get used to the idea of being dead yet breathing.

"Really?" Fumiko spoke in awe.

"I think so. When I was doing that, it felt natural to me. Like I was doing something that was just a routine thing to me." He said more to himself then to her.

Ranma wanted to remember his past. What had he forgotten?

"Wow, that's really cool" she said with her face lit up in admiration.

Ranma smiled as she complemented him, forgetting what he was thinking. He liked the idea of someone liking his martial arts skills. Then he noticed her katana sheathed at her side.

"Hey, you know how to use your sword?" He asked.

Fumiko looked at her sword and then dropped her head.

"No, I don't think so." she said shamefully.

"Hey," Ranma said quickly, not wanting to deal with a sad Fumiko after seeing angry Fumiko, "It's no big deal. I could help teach you if you want."

Her head piqued up in hopeful wonder.

"You would do that?"

"Hey, I said I'd help you if you ever got into trouble, and I meant it. If helping you learn how to use a sword can help you, the least I can do is teach you the basics."

"Oh, thank you! I really don't know how to-"

"Hey noobies"

Ranma and Fumiko spun around to see Jake standing in front of the green teleporter.

"Crash Room, now. We got a big one coming up, and the captain is not in the mood to wait. Oh, and bring your guns. You're gonna need them."

Jake quickly hopped back into the portal, leaving Fumiko and Ranma alone again.

"Well," Ranma said simply, "I guess we better go see what's going on."

"Yeah," Fumiko said sadly, "I guess we should."

"Hey, I can teach you afterwards if you want."

"Ok." Fumiko said excitedly.

Jake stepped out of the teleporter again.

"Hey, noobs, hurry up. The city's getting wrecked!"

The two looked at the reappeared Jake wide-eyed.

"What?"

* * *

><p>"<em>Oh my gosh."<em> Ranma though simply as he stared at the TV screen.

"Citizens rush in panic as these mindless mobs of people sweep through the street, destroying everything in sight. Behind these mobs, an army of undead marches behind them, armed with rifles, and heavy weapons. Local law enforcements have managed to evacuate most of the cities, and bring them to safety zones while CORE troops set up defenses around these zones, preparing for the worst. Due to fear of undead intelligence agents, we have been restricted on the amount of information we are given as to any more action the CORE troops are taking, and from information that would any action the Paladin Service is taking place at all. What we do know is that nearly all of Japan's still populated cities have been evacuated, destroyed, or cut off from all outside help due to unknown long-range communication failures."

The Crash Room was enveloped in silence as the reporter continued on about the undead attack. Toyok sat on the couch directly in front of the TV, much more interested in the reporter's cleavage than the rampaging undead in the background. Ranma and Fumiko, on the other hand, watched in horror as CORE troops fought the mobs that hobbled towards them, heedless of their companions being cut down in front of them.

The mob seemed endless as they hobbled towards the troops. Corpses had begun to pile, forcing the zombies, Ranma could only describe them as, to climb before they were cut down. Despite the decimating casualties the zombies were taking, though, they continued to gain ground as more came to take the dead's place.

"We have to help them somehow." Ranma said in a weak whisper.

"Yeah," Toyok said with his gaze still fixed on the reporter, "She has to be soooo lonely".

"Ranma," Fumiko said, ignoring Toyok, "How can we hope to help them? We're just six people while there's millions of those…whatever they are, and the reporter said that there was an organized army of Undead behind them!"

Toyok's brows furrowed.

"Six? Don't you mean seven?"

"Oh, right. I forgot about Doc." Fumiko admitted before continuing on her rant, "Still, how can we hope to be any help if there's just seven of us?"

"Because we're Death Knights, Fumiko."

Ranma and Fumiko both turned to the Ravic come out of the room on the right wall that was closest to the teleporters, which Ranma figured was his office.

"We were made Death Knights because the Lich King believed we were the best in our fields. We're not your average Joe."

Ravic walked up behind the couch Toyok was sitting on, grabbed the remote that was next to him, and turned the TV off.

"Aaaawww, Captain, I was watching that." Toyok whined.

"You can stare at her cleavage some other time, private. My office for debriefing, now."

"But Cap-" Toyok began to protest.

"Now"

The glare Ravic gave him made it clear that there was no way Toyok was going to win an argument. Unhappy about it, he got up and went into the captain's office.

"You two as well." Ravic said pointing to Ranma and Fumiko. "This is a priority seven mission. All AUCF squads are being deployed for this one."

When they walked into Ravic's office, Ranma had expected a desk littered with paperwork, a coffee cup, phone, and a computer. As far as the computer, phone, and paperwork on the desk, he wasn't disappointed. What he hadn't expected was the huge, wall-dominating TV screen that Jake, Toyok, Doc, and Ravic stood in front of.

The screen was divided in half vertically. The left side of the screen was further halved horizontally; the top screen showing the mindless mob attacking and chasing the normal people out of the buildings, catching and killing a few unfortunates that were either too slow to get away, or those who couldn't keep up with the running crowd. The lower left screen showed the undead army following the mob. What the mob missed, the army destroyed. Anyone who managed to hide from the mob was immediately butchered and torn apart. The buildings that the mob ignored were either torn to the ground, or burned to their iron-rail skeletons.

The army itself was a horror to see. In the front was a line of zombies. Unlike the mob, these looked half-way decomposed, lurching, and hunting for prey. Behind them, other humanoid bodies followed. These ones, though, walked as if they were alive. While the zombies in front of them lurched with arched backs, and glazed, hungry eyes, these walked upright with near straight backs. Their eyes were purposeful and composed, cold and calculated, and clearly capable of thinking. In their hands was something else that spoke of their greater intelligence over their lurching cannon fodder comrades; guns. Automatics, handguns, sniper rifles, and even rocket launchers were wielded by these monsters, and they used them with clear skill.

Those armed with sniper rifles walked along the roof, picking off any survivors who strayed out into the open. Those with automatics and handguns simply executed those they came across. The ones armed with rocket launchers would seemingly fire at random into the air. A few moments afterwards each one would fire, however, a helicopter or jet would come crashing down in a ball of flames.

If these intelligent Undead didn't frighten Ranma, what was behind them did. Large masses of seemingly strewn together flesh just hobbled behind the intelligent beings, armed with welded-on tank heads, and their large meaty hands. They varied in sizes, from three times an average person's height, to four stories high. They tore nearly every building they came across apart, causing any random survivor that happened to be in it to die from the building's collapse. If one managed to escape the wreckage, they were either demolished by the monstrosities, or executed by the gun-armed undead. This wasn't simply an uprising; this was a siege.

"Saotome, get your head together!" Ravic snapped.

Ranma's head jerked, breaking his gaze on the horror of the Undead army that wrecked the city. As he turned to see what was on the right side of the screen, he let out a breath he realized he was holding.

The right side of the screen was a video feed of another man sitting at an organized military desk. He was about average height with sandy blond hair, and deep-set, cold, blue eyes that had the look of someone who had seen the horrors of war. He wore a black military uniform with yellow lining tracing the edges, and had an emblem of two yellow maces crossing each other at the hilts on the chest of it. On his shoulder was a single star, signifying the rank of a Brigadier General, which explained the look of his eyes.

"Alright, this is general Mitsu of the Asian Paladin Services, or APS for short. Other than me, he's one of the few people outside the UCF you can take orders from, unless I say otherwise. General, go ahead."

Mitsu nodded in recognition of being given the floor of attention.

"Alright, here how we're going to do this. My men will do what they can to help hold off the Undead swarm; launch long-range missiles, artillery shells, and help reinforce the CORE troops on their defensive lines. Ordinarily, this would be enough. Though-out the city, we have defensive turrets hidden to help out in situations like this."

Mitsu's image was replaced with blueprints of large turrets armed with assortments of weapons that looked able to take on anything an army could throw at it; tanks, floods of infantry, aircraft, and who knows what else.

"For some reason, though, these turrets have either not come online, or are targeting our own forces. When we tried to contact the control center that operates them, we got no response."

The image then changed to a picture of a skyscraper with a radio dish mounted on top.

"I can't spare the men to even send a reconnaissance team to find out what happen, let alone a task force to get those turrets running right, and find out why they're malfunctioning in the first place. That's where you all come in. I need you all to get in there, find out what happened, and, above all else, get those turrets operating efficiently again. How you do it, nobody cares as long as you succeed."

The image returned to the General.

"Ravic, do you think your men can handle this?"

Ravic nodded.

"My men are more than capable of handing this mission."

"Without blowing up the building this time?" Mitsu asked doubtfully.

"That can also be guaranteed if I send Hagner somewhere else."

"Hey, look that was just one time, ok!" Jake yelled, "How was I supposed to-"

"Well, there's a particularly large force laying siege to the Paladin headquarters near the area the uprising started." Mitsu said thoughtfully, "Most of my best men are there, and they're having a tough time holding off the mob."

"That sounds particularly promising, assuming that Hagner doesn't hit the Paladins defending-"

"Righto, Capitan! I'll leave those Paladins untouched, and the mobs flattened! Just say the word!" Jake said eagerly.

"Mitsu," Ravic said, "do you think you can trust Hagner with this?"

The general sighed in resignation as he shook his head.

"No, but I'd rather him going nuts on the Undead instead of in the control center."

"Alright, Hagner, get geared up."

"HOOPA! I'm on it, Cappy!"

"That's Captain!" Ravic shouted after Jake just as the Corporal dashed off out of the room.

Mitsu shook his head.

"How do you put up with that man, Captain?"

Ravic shrugged his shoulders.

"All I can say to that is 'difficultly'."

Mitsu chuckled at this.

"Anyway," Mitsu said, having regained his composure, "When can I expect your team to arrive on site?"

"Hagner's ETA would probably be about thirty minutes. As for the rest of my team, from one to two hours."

Mitsu raised an eyebrow at this.

"Getting slow in your old age?" he asked.

"Nope." Ravic responded, "Just got two new recruits out of their coffins today, and I doubt they're from a military background."

Mitsu's other eyebrow rose.

"And you're sending them out?"

Ravic nodded.

"Not much choice in that, unless you would rather I send Hagner to the control center instead."

Mitsu paused as he thought about this.

"What about the other squads?" Mitsu asked.

"The JUCF is being deployed to the sectors of the city where the Undead are making the most progress. As for the rest of the AUCF, they're having problems of their own, and we've lost contact with the IUCF."

"Hey," Ranma whispered to Toyok, "What the heck is he talking about?"

"They're acronyms for the different branches of the AUCF. JUCF is the UCF's Japanese forces. IUCF is the UCF's forces in India." Toyok responded.

"So, the death knights in India are in trouble?" Ranma asked.

"Meh, probably not. We lose contact with India all the time simply because they all usually forget about the com-links. They can handle themselves."

Toyok then had a thoughtful look on his face.

"Then again, we've never had a priority seven mission before."

"What are priority missions?" Fumiko asked, having been listening in on the conversation.

"Our missions are ranked from one to ten depending on how serious the missions are. Priority one missions are pretty much handing out speeding tickets and stuff, and priority two missions involve bank robberies." Toyok explained.

"What would count as a priority ten mission?" Ranma asked.

"The only thing that could possibly count as a priority ten mission, other than the planet blowing up, would be if the Lich King came back." Toyok responded.

"You know," Mitsu finally said after thinking, "I think I'll stick with the new guys instead."

Ravic nodded.

"I figured as much. Anything else I should know?" Ravic asked.

"Yes," Mitsu said, "If you find anyone who works at the control center in a normal condition, try to get them out alive for questioning."

"Will do. Citadel 2 out."

And with that, the screen went dark, and Ravic turned to the other occupants of the room.

"Toyok, Ranma, and Doc, get yourselves geared up. Fumiko, have Nakia help you do the same. After that, head out in the Boeing. We'll talk once you've reached the LZ."

"YES SIR" Toyok and Doc shouted bringing their right fists to the left of their necks in a quick salute and left to head to the locker rooms.

Ranma and Fumiko, not used to this sort of formality, simply followed suit after Toyok and Doc.

* * *

><p>"Uh, why do I have four things of... uh"<p>

"Boy, we call them armor."

"Oh." Ranma responded, suffering a little indignity from discovering that they didn't have a fancier name like he thought they would.

"I still don't know why there's four of them."

The locker room they were in was much like that of a high school football one; backless benches, bathrooms, and a vending machine. The only difference was that the benches were metal, and all the lockers had hand print recognition scanners instead of padlocks, their owner's name emblazoned on them, if they had owners, and were much wider, allowing for room for said pieces of armor.

"Alright, Sonny, listen up, cause I'm only gonna explain this once."

Doc then pointed to the first set of armor. It was pure black with tough-looking knee pads, a small pouch strapped to the right leg, and a flack-jacket with ammo pouches all over it's front.

"That's our SWAT armor, also called our light armor. We use those when we're dealing with missions that involve either stealth, or light resistant forces, usually being a couple of Undead fellas with small guns."

Doc then pointed to the second set of armor. This one was was the same as the first one other than the underlying clothing was dark blue camo, had no pads, a thicker flack-jacket that covered more of the body, and the pockets were much bigger.

"That's our skirmish armor, also called our medium armor. We use those if we're expecting Undead with big guns, or maybe even an abomination."

Before Ranma could ask what an abomination was, Doc pointed to the third set of armor. This one was also dark blue, but that was about where the similarities with the first two sets ended. It looked like something from some sci-fi, board game. The whole body was extraordinarily thick plated with some strong metal other than at the joints, where a still extraordinarily thick sealing of some sort showed.

"That's our assault or heavy armor. If we're go'in to be fighn' armies of Undead, that's the armor we use."

He then pointed to the last piece of armor. It was more of a uniform really. All it was was a dark-blue camouflaged suit.

"That's your personalized armor. As yew start to get a feel for your missions, yew can customize it to allow you to do what you do best even betta."

Doc then turned to Ranma.

"Now shad up, and get the medium armor on! The city's getting killed out there while yew pick your nose wondering what everythang is!"


	4. Chapter 3

_**I do not own Ranma, the undead species (Splindern's species was inspired by the Crypt Fiends from Warcraft III), and the paladins and rune blades were inspired by those from Warcraft world. All else is MINE! Welllllll, the assault armor is based off of the armor worn by the Space Marines from Warhammer 40K, but all else is MINE!**_

**Death Knight Hunters**

**Chapter 3**

Ranma stared through the window of the Twin-bladed, dark-blue Boeing Chinook helicopter that flew over the city below. As far as he could tell, the only thing different about the Tokyo he imagined and the one he saw was the empty streets. The tall buildings whizzed below them, becoming nothing but blurs as they passed over each one.

He sat back down on his canvas seat to have another look at everyone else. Fumiko sat next to him, her sniper rifle leaning on the seat on the other side of her. She fidgeted with the handle of her sword, clearly trying to control herself as she fought with her nervousness. Jake sat on the other side of Ranma, arms folded and legs crossed, not bothering to hide his obvious boredom. Toyok sat in front of him wearing his medium armor with some sort of handgun strapped to his right thigh, and what looked like an automatic rifle strung across his back. He was typing away on a floating, glowing keyboard he had summoned. When Ranma asked why there wasn't a screen, Toyok replied distractedly that his helmet's visor acted as his screen. He, Fumiko, and Ranma all wore helmets that resembled the type worn by motorcycle racers with the black visors covering their faces. Unlike everything else, the helmets were a dark shade of purple, much to Ranma's relief. He was getting sick seeing of blue everywhere after being in Doc's garage, which turned out to also serve as the citadel's hanger.

Jake also wore a helmet, but he was wearing his assault armor so his was different from theirs in that it, going along with it also being "Space Marine Armor" according to Jake, had green eyes and something that Ranma assumed was something that allowed him to breathe. His armor had made him a whole foot taller, and made Ranma feel a whole lot more wary of him. Ranma still had not forgiven him of the gasoline incident, but was not keen on picking a fight with him when he was in that huge, rune covered armor.

Being confident of his martial art abilities, the large rifle, about long enough to reach a up to an average sized man's waist, didn't frighten him at all. It was all the other weaponry strapped onto him that made him fight his desire for a rematch. He had a rocket launcher and flamethrower strapped to his back, grenades as big as Ranma's hands in pouches attached to his legs, his great-sword strapped to his waist, and all of them glowed with his runes emblazoned on them all. All of this made him an frightening sight to behold.

"Oy, Hagner!" Doc shouted from the cockpit, "We're comin' up on your LZ! Be ready to hop out fast!"

"Finally" Jake said eagerly, "I've been waiting for this!"

Then, Ranma heard a quick crackle go off in his helmet.

"Just try not to blow any of the paladins up, Hagner. You give me enough paperwork to deal with what with all the collateral damage you cause."

Ranma looked around startled as he heard Ravic's voice come out of nowhere. Toyok merely sighed at this.

"It's the helmet's intercom system. The Captain can talk to us from the citadel through our helmet radios. The helmets also allow him to see and hear what we can, allowing him to help us out when we're in a fix, even point out a few things we might miss, and update us on mission objectives."

"I can also see what you're looking up on the internet, Meguncive. I seriously doubt that pictures of Megan Fox striping will help you accomplish your objective."

Toyok immediately went erect and quickly typed a few keys on his keyboard.

"Sorry, Captain."

"You're not sorry if you keep doing it. Did you teach Saotome and Ookima how to use their helmets?"

"Uhhh, no sir" Toyok replied.

"Then get to it, Private. If they're going to live, they need to be able to use all the tools they have available to them."

"Yes, Captain." Toyok answered miserably.

"We're comin' in hot on Jake's LZ. Brace yo'selves!" Doc cried out.

"Screw it, Doc. Hold it here and open the back door." Jake said standing up and began sprinting to the opening door at the back of the helicopter.

"What are you doing!" Fumiko shouted over the roar of the helicopter's blades.

"WAAAAAAHOOOOOOOO!" Jake screamed, ignoring Fumiko's question.

The helicopter jerked up slightly as Jake jumped out paratrooper style. The door closed automatically behind him as Ranma and Fumiko stood up to see him fall. They quickly went to one of the windows in time to see him draw his rocket launcher and fire a few rockets down into the crowd of mindless people below him before he became a spec as the helicopter flew away.

"He'll be fine. Hagner always does stuff like this. He never likes meeting up with anybody before fighting. The paladins will find him as the crowd eases up on them." Ravic reassured them. "Toyok, the tutorial."

"Yes, Captain." Toyok replied.

Fumiko sat down next to where Ranma sat, clearly shaken as Toyok began his lesson.

"Alright, the helmets basically are operated by your thoughts. Simply give it a mental command, and if the helmet recognizes it, which it most likely will, it will do it. Standard application that you'll most likely use a lot is the scanning function. Why don't you guys try it out on each other?"

"What!" Fumiko and Ranma shouted.

"Hey, trust me. You guys are already in the UCF database, so all the helmets will do is tell you the information we have on you guys already." Toyok assured.

Ranma nodded nervously. He looked at Fumiko hesitantly.

_"uh, scan."_ He thought to his helmet.

A box appeared around Fumiko with a line inside it scrolling down over her. When the line reached the bottom, which was done pretty fast, a box appeared on the upper-right corner of his helmet filled with data.

**Identification: Fumiko Ookima**

**Species: Human Death Knight**

**Gender: Female**

**Role: Sniper for Squad 1 of the AUCF(Asian Undead Containment Force)**

**Hair Color: Red**

**Physical age: 16**

**Description: Not much is known about Ookima, as she has just been revived on February 2, 2040.**

"_Wait, what?"_ Ranma thought to himself as he read the time. _"2040?"_

Something just didn't feel right about the date. He didn't think the year should be that big. He dismissed it as unimportant as he read the rest of the data.

**She has so far shown the appearance of a shy girl, but her body's physical status shows evidence of great strength, flexibility, and stamina. Additional muscle scans suggests that she has a history of gymnastics and aerobics training. Her posture and movement also show evidence of a sort of martial arts-like training.**

"Martial arts training?" Ranma asked out loud.

"What?"

"Huh?"

Fumiko and Toyok looked at Ranma inquiringly.

"Your description says that you've had some sort of martial arts training."

Toyok looked at Fumiko, scanning her to see if what Ranma said was true.

"It's true. No wonder you've got a sexy body." Toyok said.

Fumiko looked between them wildly, trying to grasp what it was she was hearing.

"But, I can't fight!" She protested.

"The data said you had martial arts-LIKE training." Ravic said. "That doesn't mean you've been trained to fight, or even had any martial arts training at all. All we can be certain of is that you have talents and abilities that we don't know about yet. Besides, you're a sniper. Your job mostly to stay hidden and provide cover and assisting fire for those actually going into the fray. Unless you're discovered, you won't have to worry about getting into any fights."

"But, still," Fumiko said weakly, "Why?"

"Sometimes, it's best if the past wasn't remembered, and facts left unexplained. Just relax. The past is gone, literally for us. Don't let it bother you."

"He's right." Ranma said. "I don't remember anything about my past either, and I'm a little disturbed by a few things about me, like I'm dead and I throw exploding balls of purple chi, but that's just something I'm going to have to deal with. You'll be fine."

Fumiko looked at Ranma, letting what he and Ravic had just said sink in and then nodded, a little disturbed, but not nearly as much as she originally was.

"Ok" she simply said.

Ranma nodded, glad she would be alright. Toyok shrugged and went on explaining how to use the helmets and their features, which Ranma fell asleep about a quarter way through since the lecture went on for about 30 minutes. He was woken up by Doc's heavily accented voice.

"Ey, Noobies, we're comin' up on ya LZ. Look sharp thar!"

The Boeing's rear door lowered and the three death knights walked out onto the streets, Fumiko with her rifle slung around her shoulder. The building looked just like it did in the video conference, only larger. They had to strain their necks just to see the top as it reached towards the sky.

"I think I'll have a better vantage point if I was in another building. Doc, can you take me to that tall building east of here?" Fumiko asked.

"Course. Not like I got anything better ta do! After all, I jus brought me these bottles of Bud Light to decorate the copilot seat here." Doc replied sarcastically.

"Thank you. Good luck, Ranma." Fumiko said, ignoring the sarcasm completely.

Ranma and Toyok both blinked as Fumiko hopped back into the Boeing as it took off, leaving them trying to figure what had just happened.

"Uh, did she just say bye to you and just completely ignore me?" Toyok asked.

"Um, yeah, I think she did." Ranma said.

"Man, why do you have to get that hot babe when you don't even want to sleep with her, and I don't even get a single glance?"

"Uh..." Ranma began not sure how to respond to that.

"How about you get to work on the mission? It's only a matter of time before the actual Undead force manages to reach the paladins, and when that happens, even Jake will have a difficult time holding them off." Ravic said impatiently.

"Right, yeah, let's get to work." Ranma said hurriedly.

"Still, why does he-"

"Toyok."

"Yeah, Captain?"

"Ranma's about to break the door down."

"WAIT!" Toyok screamed as he ran to stop Ranma.

***WHAM***

"Ok, we're in." Ranma said dusting off his hands.

The once sliding glass door was now nothing but wreckage on the ground with glass lying around the floor, and the metal frame in tatters amid the glass. Toyok's arms hung as he stared at the broken door.

"What?" Ranma asked.

"I wanted to hack into the paladin's security system. I've never gotten the chance to do that before." Toyok wined.

"Eh," Ranma shrugged, "My way's faster."

And with that, Ranma walked in with Toyok following with his head hung in misery.

* * *

><p>"How many of these guys are there?"<p>

"How should I know? Just keep shooting. They have to run out of bodies some time!"

Isao sighed as he did so. He wore silver-colored combat fatigues with gold embroideries on his belt, boots and gloves with a silver helmet that was strapped to his chin to keep it from moving too much. He and his platoon of fellow paladins had been fighting off the mindless mob. It felt like an eternity, and he was running out of ammo for his D5 machine gun. It had been invented during the original Undead invasion 30 years ago. It resembled the American Browning; a .50 caliber, belt-fed machine gun designed to lightly armored vehicles. Depending on the model, it was capable of firing 450-575 rounds per minute to as many as 1,200 rounds per minute at maximum effective range being 1.8 kilometers (1.2 miles). The D5 model Isao had, however, was capable of firing 1,200 rounds at an effective range of about 2.5 kilometers (1.7 miles), and could even fire accurately at that range. Under the fire-power of his weapon, the mob was being slaughtered easily. Each person was blasted in half by each bullet, including the two unfortunates behind him.

The only problem was that there seemed to be no end to this mob, and they had just lost their commanding officer. The mob just kept coming, wave after wave, body after body. After what Isao guessed was about half-an-hour, there was a mound of bloody corpses in the middle of the street that the mob was literally climbing over to reach them. He and his platoon were holding them off, but it was only a matter of time before-

***BOOOOM* *BOOOOM* *BOOOOM***

Suddenly, the side of a building next to the mob erupted, the mound, and the mob behind the it exploded in balls of fire and bodies, showering him and the platoon with debris, blood, bullet-casings, and flesh. He shielded his eyes until the series of explosions were done, and when he looked, he blinked.

And he blinked again.

He rubbed his eyes and blinked again.

In the middle of the carnage was a huge man in dark blue, heavily-plated combat armor with a flamethrower and rocket launcher on his back, a large sword strapped to his waist, and an enormous rifle in his hands that proceeded to tear the mob apart.

"Who the heck is that?" one of the other paladins asked in awe.

"Oh great," another paladin answered in a dark tone, "it's one of the UCF".

Isao looked back at the man that was laying waste to the mob. He had heard about these monsters from the other paladins back at the barracks.

"Those death knight freaks are undead themselves." a veteran paladin once told him when Isao asked about them.

"They come in with all their fancy guns, toys, and armor thinking that they're all big and bad when we do most of the work anyway."

"But, aren't they good as well?" Isao had asked him.

"Look, greenie, high-command may think that they're the best, but that's only cause they got the drop on the Lich King when he invaded. They're nothing but show-ups."

Looking at the blue armored soldier in front of him, Isao was having a tough time believing the veteran. The death knight was a sight to behold. Whenever the mob got too close to him, he slapped the rifle to his right thigh, drew his sword faster than Isao thought should be possible, and cut down all of the mob that was around him in a whirlwind of silver and trailing blue wisps. Once the mob had been cut down enough around him, he'd sheath his sword and draw his rifle back out to resume blasting them away.

After about a minute, the death knight jumped away from the mob, whipped out what looked like a switch from a pouch strapped to his thigh, and pressed it. Large portions of the mob were sent flying as a series of explosions went off among them. As this was happening, the death knight slapped his rifle to his right thigh, pulled out his rocket launcher from his back, and fired a large rocket...up?

Isao scratched his head (or his helmet since it was in the way) as the rocket went flying up and over the heads of the mindless mob.

"_Isn't the point of shooting a rocket to hit the target?"_ Isao thought to himself.

"Ha, would you look at that! He missed! All right in front of him, and he missed!" one of the paladins shouted.

***CRACK!***

The rocket popped with a loud crack, showering pellets upon the mob.

"Hey, I know I'm awesome and all, but shouldn't you guys supposed to be helping me?" the death knight turned and inquired as the pellets erupted into more balls of flame, finishing off the mob that was in sight.

All the paladins' jaws had dropped about two feet at this sight. Well, all of them other than Isao who was staring at the carnage with a blank look. Then, after about ten seconds, his eyes brightened in realization.

"Oh, the rocket was meant to scatter the pellets onto the mob!"

The paladins all sweat-dropped as their machine gunner shouted in excitement at figuring out this out.

"Uh," the death knight said, unsure of how to respond to this comment, "good job with the epiphany there-"

"But what good does scattering pellets onto a mob do?"

At this, it was the death knight's turn to sweat-drop as the paladins face-faulted.

"_What the heck? Is this guy that dumb, or is this some weird way of insulting me?"_ Jake thought to himself.

He shrugged as he decided that it was most-likely the latter, and began to head in the direction the mob had come, pulling out a few disk-shaped mines as he did so.

* * *

><p>"So, where are we going again?" Ranma asked.<p>

He and Toyok had been walking through the building for awhile, coming across spots of blood here and there, which made Toyok jumpy, especially when Ravic confirmed that this was the work of the Undead.

"We're looking for a control room to find a computer for me to use to access the defense turret grid's programming to turn the turrets on, and find out why they didn't come on in the first place." Toyok said, glad to do something to get his mind off of the blood around them. "I'll be doing this by using a data decryption bug I programmed to get past the security to begin with, and then I'll see if I can find the command statement needed to activate the-"

"OK, OK, OK! We're looking for a computer so you can fix it, that's all you needed to tell me!" Ranma yelled as he grabbed his head to stop the feeling of his head spinning from Toyok's lengthy explanation.

"_How the heck can someone who's that perverted be so freaking smart anyway?"_ Ranma thought to himself.

"There's a control room in front of you two." Ravic informed them, "But judging from the claw marks on the door there's also a squad of ghouls cleaning up after themselves in there."

"Ghouls!" Toyok shrieked.

"Yup." Ravic said after what Ranma thought he heard was the sound of him drinking something.

"Hey Ranma, you go on ahead. I'll see if I can find another control room." Toyok said hurridly.

"Not unless you want to face a few undead patrols. If there's ghouls in that building, then there's a commander in there as well, and if the ghouls are eating, then the commander thinks he's eliminated all possible resistance in the building. He finds out otherwise, he'll send in everything to change that."

"Wait," Ranma interjected, "two questions; one: what the heck are you drinking while we're walking around a building with blood covering its walls. Two: what do you mean by eating? I thought you said they were cleaning up?"

"Coffee, And if you-"

"Wait, what?" Ranma asked, "Coffee? Why would you drink that crap?"

"Coffee helps the captain focus. He's had ride off of it for the all-nighters we sometimes cause him."

"Ok, I guess I can understand that, but what about tea?" Ranma asked.

"The captain only drinks tea when he's trying to relax, which is very rare, so on those days, we try NOT to ruin it for him."

"Though I always appreciate that, you guys only succeed in giving me headaches instead of migraines, now moving on to your second question, Saotome," Ravic said, making sure that neither Ranma or Toyok had a chance to say anything more, "if you paid attention, you'd notice the smacking sounds coming from behind the door, Saotome."

Ranma looked at the door in front of them. It did indeed have deep claw marks in it, and now that Ranma was listening, he wondered why he couldn't hear it before. He could hear several smacking sounds coming from behind the door.

"Ok," Ranma said, "I still don't understand what that has anything to do with-"

"Use your head, Saotome." Ravic belittled, "There's blood and claw marks everywhere, but where are the owners of the blood?"

Ranma thought about that for awhile and his eyes grew wide from realization.

"You mean the ghouls are..."

"Eating their victim's corpses."

"THAT'S SICK!" Ranma shouted.

"That's the Undead for you."

Ranma shook his head in an attempt to get the revolting thought out of his head.

"Now, Ranma, lets see what you can do. Go into that room, and take out everyone of the ghouls in there."

"Pardon?" Ranma said.

"You mean I can sit this one out, Captain?" Toyok asked hopefully.

"Just this once Toyok."

"YEEEESSSS!" Toyok shouted pumping both fists into the air.

"Hey, keep it down!" Ranma said, but too late.

The smacking sound had stopped, and strange deep-throated growls replaced them.

The door burst open, and what came out caused Ranma to take a step back. The captain had been right about there being multiple ghouls. The ghouls, however, were disgusting. They were basically moving human corpses that were half-way through decomposition with exaggeratedly sized heads.

Ranma knew that these things would kill him if he gave them the chance.

"_Well, now's as good time as any to try out the claws." _He thought to himself._  
><em>

Ranma extended the claws of his gloves, and charged forward as they charged him. He counted about five as he did so, and made the first move. He slashed the first ghoul's face clean through and immediately leaped over it before it ran into him. He summoned a chi ball, making sure it was small this time, and threw it at the ghoul behind the one he had leaped over. The ball exploded on contact, tearing the ghoul apart, and throwing the ghouls to its sides and the ghoul behind it off their feet and away from the blast. Ranma hit the floor rolling forward onto his feet, leaping forward on top of the ghoul that was behind its incinerated companion, and shoved his claws deep into its skull.

Unfortunately, he shoved them into the floor in the process, causing them to become stuck. Ranma gave a good jerk to get his claws out of the floor and managed to throw himself at the ghoul behind him and to his left before it got back on its feet, and carve its skull into pieces. The other ghoul, however, had managed to get up and had thrown itself at Ranma's unprotected back.

Ranma whirled around to his left, and roundhouse kicked the ghoul back into the room it had come out of. When he looked, he saw that he had sent the ghoul flying had crashed into five other ghouls. Seeing an opportunity to end the fight quickly, he summoned a fist and a half sized ball of chi and threw it at the pile of ghouls. The ball immediately incinerated the ghouls, leaving only a pile of charred, unmoving corpses.

Ranma turned to see Toyok starting at him. He couldn't tell, but he was pretty sure that Toyok's helmet was the only thing keeping the perve's jaw from dropping onto the ground...until he saw the keyboard in his hand.

"Please tell me you weren't looking up porn while I was fighting off those ghouls." Ranma pleaded.

"Huh, what. Sorry, I was catching up on the latest issue of Playboy." Toyok responded.

"You freaking- I'm gonna kill you!" Ranma shouted as he put Toyok into a head lock.

"Let him go, Ranma." Ravic said, "As much as he deserves it, we need him alive to get the defense turrets back online."

Toyok gasped as Ranma let go grumbling at him.

"Thank you, Captain." Toyok rasped out.

"Don't bother. The only reason you're getting off this scott-free is because I said you could sit that fight out. Now get to work."

* * *

><p>Spildern wore a black robe that hung all the way down to his dark purple boots. His thick black hair hung messily down the sides of his head as his pale green eyes watched the TV screen in the wreck room of the building. He had stood there watching it with his hands held behind his back ever since the Undead uprising had started.<p>

"The Undead forces have managed to capture over half of Tokyo, and are expanding quickly. We have received reports that uprisings like this have sprouted all throughout the world. Paladins, and the nations' entire military forces are working to contain the Undead, but their progress so far has not been-"

A smile crept onto Splidern's face as the reporter put her hand up to her ear as she was informed of something. His master had no doubt managed to inflict more damage somewhere in the world.

"We have just received news that the paladins guarding their recruiting office in Tokyo are managing to push the Mindless back, and are beginning to counter-attack thanks to an unidentified soldier."

His smile evaporated instantly. The Mindless weren't the most reliable force, but their sheer number should have forced the paladins at their office building to stay put. No one could have managed to get through the Undead force backing the Mindless up, not even from the air, and even if by some miracle they did, one person could not have managed to-

He then had another thought. What if it was one of the UCF? He shook his head at that.

_"No, if it was the UCF, then there would be three, possibly four or five if their pilot got involved." _He thought to himself. _"They would deploy everything to stop this threat."_

"Master"

Spildern turned to face the ghoul who had addressed him.

"Report." He ordered.

"The building has been swept for survivors. We are cleaning up the remains even as we speak."

"Good. Anything else?"

"We have lost contact with the group cleaning up the main control room. Shall I kill them for you, sir?"

"No. They probably have just forgotten to report in due to being in the middle of a blood feast."

Spildern paused for a moment in thought.

"Send a small group to check up on them just in case, though. With the importance of this mission, we cannot allow any risk of intervention to go unchecked. I'll head to the control room to see how our computer hacker is doing."

"Yes, master. And if there are intruders?"

Spildern smiled cruelly.

"Then you have a larger meal waiting for you."

* * *

><p>"Hey, Toyok, what's taking so long?" Ranma asked annoyed.<p>

"Hold your horses, man. I'm still trying to get past the security." Toyok replied giddily as he set bent over a keyboard front of a computer screen.

"I thought that bug you designed was supposed to do that."

"It is. I'm just hacking the paladin's security myself as well. I've always wanted to do this!"

Ranma sighed in annoyance, and walked away to have another look at the room he was in. The room was absolutely filled with computer hardware. The walls were lined with computer screens and a window on the wall facing the door they had come in and there were isles formed by blinking lights whose meaning Ranma didn't even feel like trying to decipher. There was also blood, guts, and half-chewed gore in the aisles from where the ghouls were interrupted from their meal. Ranma had quickly removed his helmet, ran out into a nearby hallway, and completely emptied his stomach when he first saw this. In fact, he still felt a little queasy.

Ranma decided to try contacting Fumiko to get his mind off of the mess in the room, wondering if she could see him.

"Hey, Fumiko. Can you hear me?"

Ranma heard a startled squeak on the other line before he heard Ookima's voice.

"Sorry, you gave me a scare. Yes I can hear you"

Ranma shrugged.

"Sweet. Can you see me from where you are?"

"What floor are you in?"

"The fifth floor I think."

A few seconds passed before Fumiko spoke up.

"Ok, I see you."

"You nervous?"

"Sort of. Having this rifle in my hands feels...natural for some reason. At the same time, though, what if I hit you or Toyok by mistake?"

"I think you'll be fine." Ranma said. "If it feels natural, then it means that it's familiar to you, so you should do alright. Besides, I'm pretty sure I can dodge or deflect any shots you might send at me, and if you hit the perve, I'll buy you some ramen."

"Hey!" Toyok shouted from where he was working.

Fumiko giggled at this, which caused Toyok to fum even more as he went back to work. Ranma even smiled a little, his joke helping to ease the atmoshpere around him. Well, almost, but Ranma didn't really care about Toyok so long as the perve did whatever it was he was supposed to do.

Ranma took a quick look at Toyok, and decided that if Fumiko did 'accidentally' hit Toyok, he would buy her some ramen.

"Alri- Ah man." Toyok started.

Ranma quickly spun around to look at him.

"What?" He asked slightly concerned.

"You want the good news or the bad news?"

Ranma's eyes narrowed behind his visor.

"Good news." He said warily.

"Good news is that I managed to get past the security system and am checking the targeting acquiring program to see why the turrets that are on to begin with are shooting us."

"Ok," Ranma said, still nervous about what Toyok was about say. "What's the bad news?"

"The guys who wrote this program couldn't write in a readable format to save their lives so it's going to take me awhile to even figure out where the code segments I'm looking for even are."

Ranma relaxed.

"That's not so bad." He said relieved.

"Yes it is. My favorite show is coming on soon, and I don't want to miss it."

"What show?" Ranma asked.

"Women of the darkness."

Ranma blinked.

"What is-" Ranma began, not sure if he wanted to know the answer, but thankfully didn't get a chance to finish his question when he heard something outside the broken door. He walked over and saw about six ghouls coming down the hall in his direction.

Not wasting a moment, Ranma charged.

* * *

><p><strong>*BOOOOOOOM*<strong>

The paladins covered their ears as the deafening sound of one of Jake's mines going off reached them. With the death knight's help, the platoon had managed to push the mob back away from the HQ and even managed to find a few survivors of whatever had zombified the mob to begin with and send them take shelter in their HQ until things were under control again.

As Jake and the paladins began to push the mindless back, they developed a pattern. After firing off an explosive pellet-filled rocket into the mob, Jake would use his huge rifle to assist the paladins in shooting down the mob for about ten minutes before firing off another rocket. Occasionally, there would be a brief brake in the mob, for what reason, neither Jake nor the paladins were willing to question, but were thankful for; the paladins because it gave them a chance for a break, and Jake because it gave him a chance to set some mines, some simply explosion while others much more...drastic.

"Why not just shoot the rockets instead of wasting time shooting?" one of the paladins criticized finally as one of those rare moments of calm came about. "I mean, you guys happen to have unlimited ammunition, right?"

"Death knight magazines slowly remake ammunition from our runic energy when they're not loaded into the gun. Compared to the rest of my current arsenal, the rockets take the longest to reform, especially since they also have to reform the pellets I'm having to also explode with my runic energy. That in mind, I need time for the rockets to reform. Thankfully, the bullets and cartridges for my rifle take almost no rune energy at all from my reservoir, and I can have one magazine fully re-loaded in the time it takes for me to use up two other magazines, so I don't have to worry about those."

Isao blinked.

"What's runic energy?" he asked.

Jake paused at this as he thought.

"Well, you know how you paladins use the magical energy around you to cast your spells?"

Isao was the only one not nodding his head. When Jake looked at the other paladins questioningly, at least the paladins assumed he was since they couldn't see his face from behind his helmet, they shrugged their shoulders in an apologetic manner. _This guy is hopeless_, was the message they were conveying, and they held no shame in admitting this before a death knight.

"Alright," Jake said with a sigh, "lets start with the basics. You are aware of what magic is, right?"

Isao brightened up at this.

"Yeah, it's basically another sub-atomic piece of an atom that acts like an electron flying around its host atom in a cloud of other magic, sometimes ignoring or interfering with the electrons of its host atom."

Jake and the paladins blinked in surprise. They had not expected such a detailed, spot-on explanation from the machine gunner. It took a few moments for Jake to recover from his surprise and continue with his lecture.

"Right. All magic users can basically absorb the magic from the atoms around them, and store them inside of their bodies. They can then manipulate that magic to cast different types of spells depending on how they can manipulate magic"

Isao frowned.

"You mean there are different ways to use magic?"

Jake nodded.

"That's right. They can range from fire-manipulation to ice-manipulation, light-manipulation to dark-manipulation, and to some manipulations we don't even know about yet.

Now, you guys, as paladins, use light-manipulation, also referred to as holy-manipulation. With that type of manipulation, you guys can cast spells that can make people tougher, hurt beings of dark-manipulation, and of course heal people. You understand me so far?"

Isao nodded again. Seeing this, Jake continued.

"Good. Now, we death knights use dark-manipulation, but in an odd way compared to the way normal magic users do. When absorb magic, we do it through our runes instead of through our bodies. Our runes then somehow convert that magic they absorb into what's called runic energy. We use that energy just like you guys use magic. The runic energy one death knight converts, however, differs from that another one converts."

"Why is that." one of the paladins asked, interested in this subject.

"Because all of our runes are different. The energy we make is similar enough that we all have the same basic spells, but with our specific runic energy, we each have unique abilities we can use our energies for. For me, I can make all the things formed by my runic energy explode and even amplify other explosions. Hence the pellets."

Isao nodded in understanding, but one question came to mind.

"If you can make bullets with your runic energy, can you also make stuff like couches and refrigerators?"

Jake cocked his head in thought for a bit, then shook his head.

"No. Things formed from our runic energy aren't stable enough for that. It's hard enough for the energy to stay in the form of a rocket long enough to fire it and hit its target. You see, runic energy will eventually change back into magic if it sits around unused for too long. That's why the UCF will still purchase material weapons and ammunition. We'll only use them until we've converted enough magic to start forming our own ammunition."

Isao nodded his head in understanding, but then his brow furrowed as another thought came to mind.

"But what happens to the ammunition when it hits its targets?"

Jake sighed and was about to answer when one of the paladins shouted in alarm.

"Mob's coming back, and it looks like they've got some ghouls with them!"

Jake head went erect at this.

"That means the Undead army is not too far behind them."

He whipped out his rifle, and loaded a round into the chamber.

"This is gonna be fun."

The mob clambered towards them, but this time, there were ghouls among them, some walking on all fours, others walking on their two feet, but all of them walking with more intelligence than the mindless and with a clear purpose.

Jake smiled evilly behind his helmet as he saw them approaching. Then busted out laughing when the air around the first wave spontaneously combusted.

"Oh, I love gasoline mines." Jake cackled. "I wonder how many of the poor suckers there are in this mob."

"Uh, sir."

Jake looked at the paladin who had just spoken to him.

"What?" Jake asked.

"If there are ghouls in this mob, then doesn't that mean that the main Undead army is almost here?" the paladin asked nervously.

Jake's eyes widened behind his helmet. That would mean he would get a chance to take on some of the big hulking abominations. He loved fighting those guys. Then he remembered what the rest of his squad was doing.

"Yeah, but unfortunatly the rest of my squad should have the defense turrets working again before that happens." Jake said groaning.

"Uh, how is that unfortunate?" the paladin asked nervously.

"Because I want to take on some abominations." Jake answered simply. "I hope there are lots of Undead where my squad is."

* * *

><p>"How many of these freaks are there!" Ranma shouted as he decapitated the last ghoul of the current wave.<p>

"How the heck should I know! Just keep them off of me so I can figure out what the heck is wrong with the program." Toyok snapped back.

"Easy for you to say!" Ranma said hotly.

He had received a cut on his right side from where one ghoul managed to get through when he got a bit careless, and even though it didn't distract his too much, it still stung as he felt blood trickling down his body. He was also getting a little tired. After the first wave of ghouls had been eliminated, the Undead came in waves, each one getting bigger and tougher. The last one he had dispatched had a few skeletons armed with automatic rifles. AK-47s Ravic had called them.

"_As if these things weren't hard enough when they had only their claws."_ Ranma thought bitterly as he remembered them.

Ranma had only barely managed to deflect their bullets with his claws before he decided that it was perhaps a better idea to try out his handgun. He was surprised at the force of the gun's recoil, and even more surprised when he saw that all it did was put a large hole in one of the skeletons' skull that did completely nothing to stop it.

"Guns are practically useless against skeletons due to the fact that they're hollow. The only real way to kill them it to sever their spinal cord, or tear their heads off." Ravic told him.

_"Which is what I've been doing this whole freaking time!"_ Ranma mentally retorted.

"If you scan them, you'll probably find an easier way to kill them than having to hack at them."

Ranma, all in favor of an easier way of killing these things, jumped up quickly to avoid a small burst of bullets, and then gave the mental command to scan one of the skeletons.

**Identification: Skeleton Trooper  
><strong>

**Species: Undead Skeleton  
><strong>

**Gender: N/A**

**Role: Support units for Undead forces.  
><strong>

**Description: Without flesh to soften impacts, their bones, though tough, can be easily broken by strong, spread-out forces such as a strong punch or explosion. The area that would be most critical to this creature would be its spinal cord, as that appears to send out the commands to the rest of the body.**

_"Explosions, eh?"_ Ranma thought to himself as he flexed his right hand, summoning a dark-chi ball.

It was about as big as his hand, which was apparently enough when he saw that, when he threw it, its explosion tore the unfortunate undead apart. Seeing how effective this was, he finished off the rest of the skeletons the same way.

Ranma looked at the carnage around him. He had dispatched about four waves, each having at least four ghouls, and the last two having at least two skeletons with AK-47s. Luckily, none of the skeletons fired that much, and when they did fire, they missed the computer equipment. He didn't have a clue what would have happened if any of it was damaged, but he knew he didn't want to find out first hand.

"What the heck!" Toyok shouted surprised.

"What is it?" Ranma asked concerned.

"I've got good news, bad news, and more bad news."

"Let me guess, one of those bad news is that we've missed that show of yours." Ranma said sarcastically.

"Ok, so now I've got just good news and bad news. Good news is I've found out the problem with the program. Someone moved the activation code for the turrets somewhere where it wouldn't be activated unless it gets hit by paladin weaponry, in which case, it would then retaliate and start shooting the paladins."

"Ok, so can you fix that?" Ranma asked, not having caught all of what Toyok just said.

"Of course I can, dimwit!" Toyok snapped, "I said that the activation code was simply moved somewhere it would do more harm than good. All I have to do is put it back where it belongs."

"Ok," Ranma said a little surprised at Toyok's sudden vehemence, "So what's the bad news?"

"I can't alter the code anymore."

"WHAT!" Ranma shouted, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T ALTER THE CODE ANYMORE!"

"Give me a second and I'll figure out why." Toyok said dismissively.

Ranma waited, his dislike for Toyok growing. One moment, the perve was complaining about his show being missed, and then started talking to him as if he was so-

"WHAT!" Toyok shouted in outrage, "HOW THE HECK- HOW COULD THAT- AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!"

Ranma took a step back in surprise. He didn't expect this reaction.

"What" He asked cautiously, not wanting to be a target for Toyok's rage.

"Somehow, someone's used the computer in the command office to remove my clearance so I can access the turrets' code, and not only that, but the punk who did it also somehow managed to move the files containing the code to that computer as well without me noticing! THAT NO GOOD- DYAAGGH!"

"Uh, Captain. What's wrong with Toyok?" Ranma asked, not sure what to think.

"He's extremely proud of his computer abilities, especially where hacking is concerned. For someone to hack him without him noticing is akin to a lawyer realizing he's taken a case that's going to pay as much as a McDonalds will with its employees without realizing it." Ravic responded over the radio.

"Ah." Ranma said in understanding.

"Nevertheless, fixing that code is your top priority. Toyok, is there a way you can access the code in the command office's computer?"

"Sorry, Captain, but it looks like the punk's also cut himself off from the network."

Then Toyok's brow furrowed.

"Wait, that doesn't make any sense." He said.

"What doesn't?" Ranma asked.

"By moving the code's files somewhere else, and then cutting it off from the rest of the network, it would render the defense turrets completely inoperable."

"Isn't that what the Undead would want?" Ranma asked.

"That would make sense, but then it would be much easier to simply delete the code altogether."

"So they want to do something else entirely with the code?"

"Ranma, Toyok," Ravic interrupted, "you can ponder that some other time. Right now, the Undead are pressing harder on Jake's position, and he can't last that long against that whole army if it reaches him, even with a platoon of paladins. We need those defence turrets back online. You two are going to have to get to the command room and access the computer there. Any questions?"

"Just one, Captain." Toyok answered, "Can I kill the guy who hacked me?"

"If he's in the way of the command room's computer, or if you run into him after you've repaired the code and put it back online."

"Uh, guys, I think found the command room." Fumiko interjected.

Ranma and Toyok both perked up at this.

"Where?" They asked.

"It looks like two floors directly above you." She answered. "I can make out two people in there."

* * *

><p>"Hurry up!" Splindern snapped, "We have no record of that other death knight in the control room, and they both are dangerously close to where we are."<p>

The man he was snapping at was sitting in front of the computer at the desk of the command room he was in wearing a black robe with a purple front and dark-yellow rims that symbolized his position as a lowly acolyte.

The man shook a finger at Splindern.

"Tut tut, master. You can't hurry skill and perfection. Besides, the code is being copied to the flash drive, as you have requested. The progress's speed is completely out of my hands now."

Splindern sighed to calm himself down. He was agitated, and that didn't do for one's mind. An agitated mind was an unfocused one, and right now, he needed focus. He had assumed that the death knights would go straight for the undead army that had been sent for the paladin's headquarters. There weren't supposed to be any here! He knew that plans that went perfectly were either perfectly concieved, or there was something wrong, and more often than not, it was the latter. This, however, was way beyond wrong. Those death knights could ruin the plan entirely.

He took another deep breath and pushed those thoughts out of his mind. If those death knights were to enter the room, he would then just simply have to stall them long enough for the code to be copied.

He frowned at that last thought. He knew there would be no other option, but it still made him nervous. He knew all about Jake, Toyok, and Doc. He didn't know a lot about Ravic, but then, nobody did. He also knew that those four death knights were supposed to be the only death knights in AUCF squad 1, which was supposedly the only squad in vicinity at the moment. The presence of the two death knights, one of them he managed to identify as Toyok, dashed that thought. Somehow, they had found out about the control center, and had sent Toyok out to get the turrets back online. To make matters worse, there was a death knight with him that he knew nothing about. The cult's records, which were updated daily thanks to the cult's extensive information network, had no records on him. If he had to fight him, he would be fighting blind, and that made him nervous. He wanted to know as much as possible before going into something. That way, he could prepare, and allow nothing to surprise him. This death knight would be full of surprises, and because of them, had the possibility of beating him.

His sensed something. He dived.

***CRACK* *CRACK* *CRASH***

Splindern got up, and did not like what he saw. The face of his acolyte's head had erupted in blood and brains, a bullet hole had appeared in the wall where his head would have been if he had not ducked, and he saw the unknown death knight standing in a shattered window with Toyok laying on his back right next to him.

"How did you get in here!" He yelled.

Ranma blinked

"Uh, we broke through the window."

"No no no," the black-haired guy, who Ramna guessed was the commander, said, "I mean, you were two floors below this room. How did you get in this room so fast?"

Ranma's chest swelled with pride.

"I grabbed Toyok, jumped up from the window of the room we were in, stuck my blades into the side of the wall, and then we curved into here."

The commander's mouth dropped at this. Outstanding was too complementary for an enemy, but Splindern could think of no other word to describe this death knight.

"So" the Ranma continued, "I'm guessing you're the commander we're here to stop?"

"Eh, what?"

"You" he said pointing at the commander, "are you the guy calling the shots here?"

It took a few moments for the guy to register what had Ranma had just said.

"Not anymore." He said, and then shot a green web from his wrist at Ranma.

Ranma barely saw the web in time and bent his back enough to allow the web to pass over him matrix style.

_"What the heck! Is that guy Spider-Man or something?"_ He thought to himself.

By the time he had straightened back up, he realized that the spider-guy had jumped out the window.

Splindern was not at all ashamed of running from the death knight. He knew nothing about him, and those who charged into fights without knowing who their opponents where usually lost.

He nearly relaxed when he realized he had forgotten about the sniper that had nearly killed him. Wasting no time, he shot a web at the building he was escaping from, and pulled. He barely managed to escape another shot, but not without sustaining a scratch across his back.

He hissed in pain, but didn't give it a second thought as he realized that he needed to get out of the open. Thinking quickly, he shot a web from either hand at the sides of a widow he was coming up on, and then pulled, bringing him into the window. With escape being the first thing on his mind, he dashed for the door in front of him. He then felt something hit his upper back, bringing him down to the ground. He rolled over and stood up to see what had hit him, and was shocked to see that it was the death knight he was running from.

_"How can this guy keep up!"_ He thought to himself.

He dived backwards and shot two webs at the wall behind him, pulling himself away from the death knight. Landing at the base of the wall behind him, he realized he had not put himself in a good position. The death knight charged him, and he hastily shot two webs at him, in hopes of entangling him. His hopes were dashed when he saw that the death knight simply jumped over them. He leapt out of the way, whirled around, shot two webs at the ceiling above where he was just standing, and then yanked, HARD.

***WHUMP***

The ceiling collapsed on the death knight, burying him completely. If this was a normal person, or even a paladin, this would kill him. Unfortunately, this was a death knight, and a skilled one at that. The rubble wouldn't hold him long.

Splindern made a break for it, and dashed out of the room.

Ranma burst out of the rubble angrily, ignoring the cut on his side that began to worsen due to the rubble.

_"Ok, that's it. I'm gonna kill that guy."_ Ranma thought to himself.

The guy had not only tried to run away from him, but had also buried him in rubble!

He ran out of the room and saw the guy turn a corner. Ranma dashed after him as fast as he could, extending his claws and running them into the corner to help him turn.

The man looked over his shoulder and saw Ranma gaining on him. He then shot a web at the wall, and pulled hard, bringing part of the wall down and in the way of his pursuer. Ranma jumped over it, not slowing in the least. The man panicked and shot more webs at the walls and the ceiling, bring down more rubble in attempts to slow Ranma down. Ranma simply dodged them them as well.

_"Ok, this is getting annoying."_ Ranma thought wincing at the cut on his side as he turned another corner. _"Time to end this, Spider-Man."_

Ranma charged up a dark-chi ball to double fist size, leapt over some more wall rubble, and then threw the ball as hard as he could.

He not only succeeded in hitting the guy, but also making a projectile out of himself again, and went straight through the wall behind him, and got knocked out in the process.

* * *

><p>Toyok woke up with a serious headache.<p>

When Ranma had proposed his idea of leaping up two floors out of the window, Toyok had refused adamantly. He hadn't clued in that Ranma didn't care if he didn't like the idea when Ranma asked him how much he weighed. Next thing he knew, he was laying on the ground face up in a room he knew he didn't recognize, and had a serious pain in his head. The perv put two and two together, and realized what happened.

_"Why did he have to hit me so hard?"_

He then remembered that this was the room that the guy who hacked him was in.

He jumped up, drew his automatic weapon, an M4 carbine, looked around the room, and saw a body sitting in front of the computer on the dominating desk of the room. Toyok immediately unloaded an entire clip into the guy.

"Take that you no good lowlife!" Toyok shouted as he peppered the body of the hacker who dared to hack him.

Upon emptying his entire clip, he reloaded his weapon and fired some more, allowing his magazine to reload itself from the runic energy he was creating. This went on for about a minute until Toyok decided he was done extracting his revenge and then holstered his rifle on his back again.

"You satisfied, Meguncive?" Ravic asked expectantly.

"Yup." Toyok said.

"Then get to work fixing that code"

"Yes, sir."

Toyok, none to gently, picked the body up out of the chair, threw it out of the way, sat down, and in a manner of 60 seconds, fixed the code and put it back to where it belonged.

"Done, Captain."

"Alright, head outside and wait for Ranma. Then I'll have Doc bring the Boeing to you and Ranma to pick you two up."

"Yes sir!" Toyok said saluting with his left fist while his right kept working on something.

"Saluting with your left hand, in any culture, Meguncive, is an insult. We are no exception."

Toyok immediately remedied this.

"And what did I just order you to do?" Ravic demanded._  
><em>

Toyok hung his head as he logged off of the computer and went for the door. He then froze.

"Uh, Captain, what if I run into any patrols?" He asked nervously.

"Then you might just have to fight them." Ravic answered simply.

"Swell" Toyok answered missereably, "Where's Ranma when you need him?"

"At the moment, coming around after being knocked out by his own chi-blast and thrown through the wall leading into the women's bathroom."

"WHAT!" Toyok shouted, "CURSE YOU RANMA!"

* * *

><p>Ranma lifted his head and shook it. He then shook it again. He then wiped his visor. He then realized that his helmet was being sprayed on by water from a sink. He immediately jumped from where he was and patted himself down out of pure instinct. Everything was alright. Nothing had changed other than he was wet.<p>

_"Wait"_ Ranma thought to himself, _"Why would anything be different?"_

Ranma thought about this for awhile, then shrugged it off. After all, it's not like he was under some curse or something where he would change if he got wet.

***clunk***

Ranma paused as he felt something unexpectedly hit the back of his head. He whirled around, extending his claws ready to take on anything.

Except two fearful women in lab coats holding pipes close to them in hopes of defending themselves. One of them was about a head shorter than he was, and had blond hair tied back into a pony-tail and wore glasses over her green eyes. The other was a brunette with brown eyes, and was a few inches shorter than the first woman was as she stood in front of the blond.

"You-you'll ne-never t-take us wi-wi-without a fi-fi-fi-fight" the brunette said shakily.

Ranma blinked. These women clearly weren't trying to eat him, they looked like they worked here, and they looked alive.

"You two survivors?" He asked.

The two women blinked. This was not what someone who was planning to kill them was supposed to do. The blond recovered first.

"Ye-yes, we are. Who are you?"

Ranma relaxed and retracted his claws.

"I'm Ranma Saotome. I'm here to help you."

The brunette held her pipe out at him.

"How do we know you're not lying?"

Ranma paused at this.

"Uh," Ranma said as he thought.

She had a point. How was she supposed to know that he wasn't some monster that-

"I haven't tried to attack you." He said hoping that would do the trick.

"You could be trying to bait us." the brunette countered.

"Oh, come on!" Ranma said, not happy that it did NOT do the trick, " look if I wanted to kill you guys, those pipes wouldn't do a thing. You two obviously can't use them effectively, and I could just cut them up anyway. You'd be dead by now."

"He's got a point, Kyoko." the blond said, lowering her pipe.

"Come one, Yuki, he could be in league with Splindern, still trying to find us."

"Wait," Ranma said, getting the two girl's attention, "who's Splindern?"

"I think you know, undead." Kyoko snapped, pointing her pipe at Ranma.

"Kyoko!" Yuki admonished, "I think he's honestly trying to help us."

"Maybe that's just what he want's you to think." Kyoko responded.

"Would you just please tell me who Splindern-" Ranma started.

"Ranma, Toyok's finished fixing the code for the defense turrets and is on his way down. Splindern is probably the guy you just killed. Show them the body. If that doesn't convince Kyoko, put me on speaker, remove your helmet, and then let me talk to them."

"Uh, ok, Captain." Ranma said, and then turned to Kyoko and Yuki, the former starting to look more confident in herself. "Wait here real quick."

Ranma hopped out of the hole in the wall he had created, hopped over some rubble, and found Splindern's body. At least what was left of it. All that was left were the legs and hands.

_"Ok, I don't think this is going to work."_

"Uh, Captain-"

"Yeah, I see it. Put me on speaker now and bring them anyways."

"Ok." Ranma said simply. After all, if he came back without anything, it would seem suspicious.

_"Speaker."_ Ranma mentally commanded as he went back to where he left the two girls.

As Ranma entered the hole, he ducked under a pipe swung at him.

"Could you not try to kill me?" Ranma asked a little annoyed at the brunette's insistance that he was evil.

"Oh, so you came back, eh? Where's your ghouls?" The Kyoko demanded.

"Kyoko, I really think he's just trying to help us." Yuki said trying to calm Kyoko down.

"Hey," Ranma said, "This is Splidern. At least, what's left of Mr. Spider-Man after I killed him."

Kyoko gagged at the sight of the legs and hands while Yuki turned a shade of green.

"Y-you think that a pair of legs and hands will convince us that you're trying to help us?"

"Yeah, I didn't think that would work. Hey, Captain, I think I turned the speaker on."

"You did, Saotome. They should hear me now."

Both Kyoko and Yuki started at hearing a second voice coming from the one man standing before them.

"Ranma, take the helmet off."

Ranma did so, letting his pig-tail fall down. Kyoko brought her pipe back up while Yuki took an involuntary step back.

_"Must be the eyes."_ Ranma thought.

"You take orders from General Mitsu, don't you?" Ravic questioned.

Kyoko stiffened at this.

"Wha-what, that's classified? How do you even know that!" She demanded.

"He sent us here to find out what was wrong with the defence turrets, reactivate them, and bring back any survivors we found. That means whether you believe us or not, we will retreive you, and then drop you off at the nearest paladin station for questioning. So you can simply go willing with Saotome and Meguncive, who is somewhere else in the building, or I can have Saotome make you come."

That got Kyoko sputtering.

"Wha-over my dead body you are!"

"Go ahead Saotome."

"Sure thing. I was getting tired of trying to convince her anyways." Ranma said as he put his helmet back on.

"Get back!" Kyoko shouted and swung her pipe at Ranma, who caught it easily, pulled it out of her hands, threw it behind him, and then picked her up, and tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"PUT ME DOWN, YOU OAF! I SAID PUT ME DOWN!" She yelled hitting Ranma's back uselessly.

"You coming?" Ranma asked Yuki, who stood a little surprised at what had just occurred.

First, Kyoko was holding a pipe threateningly at Ranma, who was clearly trying to help them, and then he was carrying her on his shoulder while she beat at his back screaming at the top of her lungs. It took a moment before she realized that Ranma was talking to her.

"Uh, yes yes, I'm coming." and with that she proceeded to follow him out, ignoring Kyoko's screams.


	5. Chapter 5

Me: "Ok, just in case none of you haven't already noticed, I will be updating sporadically. I do have a life."

Jake: "No you don't. You're just sitting around doing nothing but playing video games and hoping that you'll get a girlfriend."

Me: "Jake, shut up."

Jake: "Not to mention that you actually began making progress with this story only because you used it for your English vocab tests in high school, and you were actually thinking about-"

Me: "Jake, do you want me to stop making updates for this story?"

Jake: "...no."

Me: "Then I would suggest you shut up."

Ranma: "Yeah, man. I want to know what happens next."

Me: "What the- Ranma, what are you doing in the Author's note?"

Ranma: "I got bored. You haven't updated in months! It'll probably take even longer to update now that college is going on now. I want to find out who else I get to beat the crap out of."

Me: "Ugh, fine, I'll get to work."

Nakia: "Hey, what'cha boys talking about?"

Me, Ranma, and Jake: "Nothing!"

**Death Knight Hunters**

**Chapter 4**

Ranma sat in the copter with his arms crossed as Kyoko sat strapped in the seat across from him with her mouth taped closed and her wrists and ankles bound in duct tape while Yuki did her best to try to calm her down, something she was having a very difficult time doing.

Upon Doc and Fumiko's arrival to pick he and Toyok up, Kyoko had gotten worse with her abuse and accusations. Although Toyok liked the fact that she was at least attractive, even he was getting tired of her trying to come up with reasons why they were evil. Ranma was ecstatic when Toyok told him about the outside mute function in their helmets, allowing for them to block out all noise that wasn't radio broadcasts, or themselves. However, that still left Yuki at the mercy of Kyoko. Thankfully, Doc had duct tape in the helicopter, which Toyok and Ranma used in earnest. It probably wasn't helping Yuki in trying to calm her down, but it did at least muffle her.

Toyok sat to the far right of Ranma, trying to stay as far away from the psychotic woman as possible while looking something up online. Fumiko sat to Ranma's immediate left with her head leaned back trying to catch some sleep. Considering that, and that he had no intentions on turning his outside mute function (which he decided to call the O-mute), this left him bored.

"Hey, Doc," He called out on his helmet radio, "Where are we going?"

"For the hundredth time, we're goin' ta pick Jake up, and then head back to the citadel! Now shad' up an sit tight bafore I throw you out the chopper!" Doc snapped back irritably.

Ranma sighed heavily. He hated waiting. It was boring. It meant that nothing was happening. It also meant nothing was trying to kill him, and he missed the adrenaline rush. He looked outside in time to see a defense turret far off in the distance fire a rocket at something.

"_At least those things work,"_ he thought to himself.

While Ranma was "escorting" Kyoko and Yuki outside of the building, he came across the building's rec-room and saw its TV tuned into a news channel reporting the miraculous intervention of the city's defense turrets, which cut the Undead army into pieces, eliminating the abominations (which the anchor explained were the large, hulking things made from stitched together flesh) and their larger companions and scattering the rest of the Undead forces into groups the paladins and CORE troops could handle themselves.

Ranma was startled out of his thoughts when Ravic came on over the radio.

_"Doc, Toyok, Ranma, Fumiko, turn your outside mute off. I need to talk to the survivors about something and I want you all to be listening,"_ Ravic said.

"Uh, Captain," Ranma said uncertainly. "Are you sure that they'll cooperate with us?"

"Yeah, in case you haven't noticed, Kyoko doesn't seem to want to talk to us," Toyok added, dispelling his keyboard.

_"Doesn't matter. Turn your mutes off."_

Ranma sighed and complied, wincing as he began hearing Kyoko scream something muffled through the duct tape over her mouth. Judging by the sizzle and slight melting of the tape, he was willing to bet it wasn't good.

_"Kyoko, this is Ravic,"_ he said over loudspeakers in the helicopter that Ranma didn't know existed. _"I'm going to have Ranma take the tape off of your mouth so I can ask you a few questions. If you don't answer them, I'll have him put the tape back on. Understood?"_

Kyoko froze as she listened to the captain. She hesitated a bit, but nodded, doubt still in her eyes.

_"Ranma, go ahead."_

Ranma got up, got a grip on the tape on Kyoko's mouth, and then yanked it off, electing a scream from her.

"OW! That hurt! You could have been a bit more gentle you know!" She screeched.

"Kyoko," Yuki said pained.

_"What do you know about the Mindless?"_ Ravic asked.

Kyoko made as if to retort something, but then closed her mouth.

"They seem to be responding to some sort of commands given by someone. Who, how, and from where, we don't know," Yuki said seeing that Kyoko wasn't willing to say much.

_"Do you know how they're created?"_

"No. All we know is that one moment, they're just fine one moment and then the next, they're Mindless."

_"I think I can answer that!"_ Nakia chimed in.

The two survivors' heads went up at the new voice.

_"Do you guys remember any stink bugs spraying anything on the guys that became mindless?"_ Nakia asked.

The survivors' eyes furrowed in thought.

"Now that you mention it, there was a small issue with stink bugs earlier in the week. A few of the guys got sprayed even," Yuki finally said.

_"I compared the stink bug we found sent to a normal one. The spray from the one we found sent does emit a smell like the normal ones, but its spray contains loads of magic that vaguely resembles that of the Plague."_

_"WHAT!"_ Ravic shouted, causing Ranma and Toyok to wince, and Fumiko's head to jerk forward.

"Wha?" She muttered, causing Ranma to stare at her incredulously.

"Where you asleep the whole time?" He asked.

"Yeah," She said yawning as she stretched her arms. "I was a little tired, so I decided to try get some sleep."

"Did you even have your O-mute on?" Ranma asked.

Fumiko and Toyok both looked at him weirdly when he said this.

"What the hell's an 'o-mute' when its at home," she asked bluntly.

"Oh," Ranma said in sudden understanding. "I thought that calling the thing that mutes the stuff going outside of our helmets by their name would be a mouthful, so I decided to call it the O-mute."

Toyok looked thoughtful for a moment, at least as thoughtful as he could while still wearing his helmet.

"That's actually a good idea. I'm going to use that. Nice one, gay-man." Toyok said.

"I'M NOT GAY, PERVERT!" Ranma roared, electing a surprised look from Kyoko and Yuki.

_"Saotome, Meguncive, shut up,"_ Ravic snapped. _"Nakia, how does the spray resemble the Plague?"_

_"The spray, once coming into contact with its victim, seeps into his or her skin and eventually invades the nervous system. Once there, it waits for some sort of signal, what the signal is, I don't know,"_ Nakia explained. _"But once it receives that signal, it kills its host, and leaves it to the command of whoever sent out the initiation signal to begin with. The main difference, though, is that they seem to only be commanded for a certain amount of time, and they're not actually being turned into actual zombies."_

"Wait," Ranma said. "How are they not zombies?"

_"Well, for one thing, zombies' brains are capable of some independent function as well as taking commands. These things-"_Nakia began.

_"Nakia,"_ Ravic interrupted. _"I meant: explain it so we can all understand, please."_

_"Ok, basically, zombies can operate a little on their own. Albeit it's 'brains brains brains, I want brains', but still operating on their own. The Mindless seem to operate only when told to do something."_

"What are you doing with that bug?"

Everybody stared at Kyoko like she'd sprouted a second torso when she imperiously demanded this.

"That bug is extraordinarily dangerous. You have no authority to handle it," she stated haughtily.

"Kyoko, they caught the bug themselves, and fought off most of the Undead forces. I'm pretty sure that they can-" Yuki began protesting when Kyoko cut her off.

"No. The paladin authorities are the only ones with the clearance to the data about the bugs," she snapped, starting to sound a little shrill.

"And how would you know that, Miss Know-it-all?" Toyok inquired snidely.

_"She and Yuki apparently were studying these bugs themselves,"_ Ravic answered. _"The reason they were at the control center for the city's defense turrets, however, I have not been informed of."_

Yuki's look became uncomfortable while Kyoko's, if it were possible, became even more hostile.

"That's classified," Kyoko said acidly.

_"One moment,"_ Ravic said.

"It doesn't matter what you do. You don't have clearance to access what it was we were doing at the control center, or-" Kyoko continued self-righteously.

_"Kyoko,"_ said a different voice that caused Kyoko to stop in mid-sentence and Yuki's eyes to bulge. _"This is General Mitsu. Password; Rising Sun. You are authorized to give full details of Project Bug-Bite to AUCF Squad 1, who you see before you."_

"WHAT!" Kyoko shouted after a few stunned moments. "But, General, we were informed that we would be assisted by one of your Lightbringer squads, not these _Undead_!"

The way she spat 'undead' you'd think she was saying a vile curse word that left foul droppings in her mouth.

_"Kyoko, they are not the Undead. They are responsible for aiding in the removal of the Undead, and are the among the best at it," _Mitsu snapped at her_. __"Also you _were_ going to be assisted by a Lightbringer squad. Unfortunately, all paladin troops are being deployed in a clean up effort to deal with the damage the Undead caused, and we still don't know how much Mindless are left in the city. Besides that, we lost contact with the squad that was supposed to assist you when they entered the control center five minutes before the Undead and Mindless siege began. Now you will give your _full_ cooperation to these death knights. Understood?"_

Kyoko could only gap at this. A fact which Ranma and, he was sure, all the other death knights present enjoyed thoroughly.

"But-but," Kyoko stammered, dumbstruck.

_"Understood, _Miss_ Miyamoto?"_ Mitsu emphasized.

Kyoko's eyes had a look of betrayal as she simply stared at the speaker before she simply grounded her teeth at it.

"Understood. Sir," She growled vitriol dripping from her voice.

_"Yuki?"_ Mitsu asked.

"Understood, sir," Yuki said much more respectfully.

_"Thank you for your assistance, Mitsu,"_ Ravic said.

_"No problem. Kyoko holds a deep-seated hatred for anything that is related to the Undead unless it involves killing them. If she gives you anymore trouble, let me know, and I'll see if I can help. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to work trying to mop up the leftover Undead and Mindless,"_ Mitsu replied before going silent.

_"Alright, now, what were you two doing at the control center?"_ Ravic questioned.

Kyoko still had a look of hatred in her eye, but having been ordered to cooperate, she began talking, voice as hard as granite and as sharp as glass.

"We were seeing if we could trace the trace the command signal for the Mindless."

Ranma looked at her with a blank face, thankfully hidden due to his helmet. Luckily, Yuki seemed to see this despite the helmet and proceeded to explain.

"The control center is able to trace almost any frequency to within an area of about 35 kilometers. We were in the middle of pinpointing the exact location of whoever is controlling the Mindless when the siege began," she stated.

"So you have a basic area of where the guy controlling the Mindless is?" Toyok asked.

Kyoko, the look of hatred still in her eyes, simply nodded.

"Sweet," Ranma said. "So we simply go to where the guy is and find him. Then what?"

Toyok simply stared at him when Ravic answered for him.

_"You bring him in, or if you can't, kill him,"_ He said.

Ranma blinked.

"What?" he asked.

_"Saotome, when you, Ookima, Meguncive, and Hagner find him, you will try to knock him out so you can bring him back to the citadel so we can find out more about what is going on. If you can't bring him in, you will kill him and we'll call it a day."_

Ranma relaxed a little when he heard that he only had to knock him out. For some reason, he didn't feel comfortable with killing anyone. Splindern was trying to kill him, so he was fine with his death, but he wasn't so sure about going after someone to kill them. He didn't know why. He just wasn't.

_"The later, though, is what's expected. The former is usually a luxury we don't get a chance to afford,"_ Ravic added.

Ranma suddenly wasn't relaxing anymore.

***WHAAM***

The Helicopter rocked a bit as Ranma felt something hit the side of the aircraft.

"Sweet piece of beef jerky, what the 'eck was that!" shouted Doc from the pilot seat.

"That felt like a missile," Toyok said, gripping the edge of his seat tightly.

"The 'eck it was!" Doc shouted back. "It'd shown up on mah radar. Watch outside yo windows in case more o those thangs show up. This baby's tough, but I don't want to push her to the limit. Cap'n, we'll call ya back as soon as we know that we're safe again."

_"Roger that, Doc,"_ Ravic responded.

"There's an Undead outside!" Yuki shouted out.

Ranma ran to Yuki's window, and sure enough, there was someone out there that was definitely Undead. The thing was had the basic human body in black combat fatigues, but it's fingerless gloves revealed pointy bones where its fingers belonged griping what looked like suction cups, and shrived skin, especially in the face. The lips were missing, revealing its teeth, and the skin around the chin seemed to cling tightly to the bone, seemingly showing the bone. The copter shuddered as it clambered to rear of the helicopter using its suction cups, slamming them into the sides of the craft to make sure they stuck.

"Buckle up and hang on, noobs! I'm gonna try and throw 'im off!" Doc shouted.

Ranma ran to his seat as everyone managed to get strapped in, Kyoko already strapped to restrict her from moving around the helicopter, but didn't manage to make it time before Doc threw the helicopter into a tight turn.

He ran right into the right wall, trying to keep his balance, and tumbled into the left wall as Doc made a sudden, hard right turn.

"Hey, I haven't- oof- made it to my seat yet!" Ranma shouted as he was once again thrown into the right wall.

"Too bad for yew noob! Grab onta something or somebody until the ride's over!" Doc shouted back as he threw the helicopter into another tight right turn.

Ranma managed to grab onto a harness with his right hand before the helicopter turned again, causing him to fly out to the center of the copter, and then back into the right wall. Ranma then shot his left hand out to grab another harness. Unfortunately, he didn't quite grab a harness.

"Uuuuuuuuhhhhh" Ranma said uncomfortably.

"Under the current circumstances, I'm willing to let this slide without any hard feelings if you let go of my breast right now," Fumiko said in a low tone as she clenched his hand tightly.

Ranma quickly let go. Fumiko, realizing that he needed something to hold onto, moved his hand to her harness, since it was the only thing he could hold onto to keep himself steady that didn't involve further groping. They were both thankful they were still wearing their helmets to conceal their blushing. Hidden or not, though, fact that Toyok was staring was not helping matters at all.

"You...freaking...lucky...gay-man." Toyok muttered.

"I'M NOT GAY YOU FREAK!" Ranma roared.

"Hey, I won't judge you by your gayness. If you have absolutely no interest in women, just at least try to send them my way, would ya?" Toyok responded.

Ranma growled and his strange eyes light up the wall and caused shadows to dance starkly across Fumiko even through his helmet, causing Toyok to eye him uneasily as the other man's powerful arms tensed.

***BOOOOM***

Ranma was about to launch himself at Toyok when the helicopter suddenly lurched forward as the sound of an explosion went off outside.

"Aarrgghh! That Undead is tryin' to blast his way into the copter!" Doc shouted. "Either I'm going to have to try stallin', or I open the door to let him in, and yew noobs take 'im on. Yo choice, but choose quick or I'ma choose for yew!"

"Open the door, Doc. I don't think that we're going to get rid of someone that persistent without forcing him to. Try to keep us steady," Ranma called out.

"All right, but it's yo funeral, noob," Doc muutered the last words. "I'll keep Toyok from callin' ya 'gay' at the casket!"

As the helicopter steadied out, Ranma stood up, and walked over to the back as the door began to open.

The back door opened up and, and before Ranma knew what was going on, there was a small explosion that sent him back a few steps, and the Undead swung in from the side under the cover of the smoke, both feet connecting with Ranma's head.

Ranma flew and landed on his back slightly dazed and grateful for his helmet.

_'That thing's strong,'_ He thought to himself, since it the kick did indeed pack some power to it.

He forced himself to sit-up in time to catch a curb-stomp in one of his hands before it hit his groin, but not the sharp kick to his head from the Undead's other foot as it spun around, dazing him as it's foot landed back on the floor of the helicopter.

Fumiko didn't know what exactly prompted her to unstrap herself and fight the Undead, but she couldn't stand seeing Ranma getting beat up the way he was. A warm, red haze settled over her vision as a lethal lethergy settled into her limbs. Then she...fought.

The Undead somehow heard her get up over the roar of the helicopter blades, and settled into a fighting stance. Fumiko swung a right-handed backhand at the Undead's throat, sending it ducking and preparing to counter-attack when Fumiko used the momentum of her backhand to launch a spin kick that connected with it's face.

The Undead fell, arms flying out to it's sides as it rolled onto it's back and it's head hit the floor. Before it had time to recover, Fumiko was facing it again and dropping to one knee, throwing her body weight and momentum behind her left fist as she drove it into the Undead's throat, breaking it and causing the Undead to begin choking on it's own flesh and causing a crack in the spine.

Fumiko then grabbed it's left arm, flipped it face down, twisted it's arm away from his body, planted her foot on it's back and stood up, pulling_ hard_ as she did so, dislocating it's arm with a loud ***CRACK***, electing a muffled scream from the already choking Undead, depleting it's already low air-reserves. Fumiko threw the Undead away, _'Clear your kami-damned area_' barking in her ears, and simply stood there staring at it in shock, even after the few seconds in which it went limp.

'_How did I do that?'_ Fumiko thought to herself as the burn of adrenaline pushed away the hazy stillness.

"Yikes."

All eyes turned to Toyok who sat in his seat staring at her.

"You're hot AND dangerous," He awed. "We should have sex sometime."

_"Ranma, slap Toyok upside the head for me,"_Ravic's voice said over the helicopter's speakers.

"With pleasure," Ranma purred.

"Wha-?" was all that Toyok managed to say.

***WHAM* *CRACK* **"YEEEOOOWWW!"

Yuki stared at the scene amazed. While she was staring at Fumiko after she had just killed the Undead, Ranma had apparently gotten up in time to be able to oblige the captain's command to slap Toyok, but was still a little dazed so instead of slapping him, Ranma had instead punched his arm hard enough brake it.

"What the BLEEP, man! That BLEEPing HURT!" Toyok shouted.

As he held his arm, everyone looked at him oddly.

"What?" Toyok snapped.

"You censor yourself? And you call _Ranma_ gay?" Fumiko snorted.

"I do not, BLEEP it!" Toyok defended

"Then why were there bleeps in your speech?" Yuki asked.

_"We had an issue where a section of the city claimed that our 'language' was a bad influence on the youth, and refused our help unless we did something about it. Thanks to that, our helmets will either bleep out any cuss words we say, or mute them completely. As insurance, though, we try not to cuss to begin with. Saotome's and Ookima's helmets, however, have not had that software installed yet it seems,"_ Ravic said, answering Yuki's question.

"Why?" Kyoko asked quizzically, momentarily forgetting her hatred. "The CORE troops' language is worse than a drunk American sailor's, and nobody complains about that. Why would they care about your language?"

"Because everybody is racist," Toyok simply said. "Which is a shame really. So many lovely ladies that could enjoy this body," He added wistfully.

"Perverted pig," Kyoko snapped, hatred restored, with a dash of personalized annoyance.

"What did you just call me?" Toyok roared.

_"__Ranma, hit him again, Toyok, shut up, you deserved that," _Ravic snarled.

Ranma gave a feral grin before slamming a fist into Toyok's gut, cutting off his protests as Ravic continued over the sounds of violence.

_"Kyoko, were you and Yuki successful in finding out where the controller for the Mindless are?"_

"Sort of," She answered. "We managed to determine the area of the controller to within about a 300 meter radius within the Deadlands."

_"Alright then. Doc, continue on your current course to pick up Hagner and then come back to the Citadel to drop off Meguncive, and allow Saotome and Ookima to change into their heavy armor. You'll receive further instruction after that."_

"Wait!" Kyoko protested. "There's no way we can find the guy controlling the Mindless in that big of an area with what we've got before he figures out that we're looking for him! Why not just bring us back to the control center so we can finish pinpointing the location?

_"Because you can't trace a signal that's not transmitting, and I'd rather not wait for another wave of Mindless to get created just to trace whose responsible for it. We're going to work with what we've got."_

"Uh, guys, what are the Deadlands?" Ranma asked, now siting safely strapped down in his seat.

Kyoko and Yuki simply stared at him.

"What? I just came back to life today," He defended.

"HA!" Kyoko shouted, vindicated. "So you guys ARE Undead!"

_"Yes and no,"_ Ravic said blandly. _"We are brought back from the dead, but we serve ourselves, and have dedicated ourselves to exterminating the Undead left here. Of course, Ranma and Fumiko just came out of their coffins today, so they have a month to decide whether or not they want to be members of the UCF."_

"And if they don't?" Kyoko said with an edge of hysteria, trying to find something to use against him.

_"Then they're on their own."_

"So you're willing to let undead roam free among the people." Kyoko accused, a hint of gleeful horror audible.

_"__I'm willing to let _death knights_ survive on their own,"_ Ravic clarrified. _"__If they become a threat, however, they are hunted down and killed,"_ Ravic replied.

"Uh, have you ever had to do that?" Ranma asked slightly unnerved.

He wasn't worried that they could kill him. He was sure he could take them on easily. It was the way he said that that disturbed him, as though he never lost any sleep over the possibility that he might kill people he'd fought beside for a month.

_"No. The UCF has never had to do so."_

There was silence in the helicopter as it continued on the course it had been on before the random Undead attack.

* * *

><p>"Azhule, what is the meaning of the siege?" Sarach demanded. "Because of this, we had to suspend most of our operations to avoid detection, and we won't be able to resume until the military has calmed down, something that will not happen for at least a year."<p>

Within the room, the five leaders looked expectantly at the figure in the television screen that was mounted above the entryway as he bowed his head apologetically.

"I apologize but it was necessary. I needed to get all of the fighting-capable paladins out of their headquarters long enough for my bugs to infiltrate it. Then-"

"So you nearly depleted our military garrisons simply to create a diversion!" Sarach roared.

Azhule wrung his hands nervously.

"Yes. But as I sad it was necessary so my bugs could get-"

"ENOUGH!" Sarach exploded. "By doing this, you have left us vulnerable to attack by other Undead organizations. If they find out that those were _our_ soldiers, we will be forced to fight wars underground and possibly even publicly, and then you will suffer!"

The color drained from Azhule's face. Any who displeased the Five never lived to see the next day.

"Though Sarach is making a more of this than it probably is, all she has said is true," Solginn said calmly. "For your plan to work, you were correct in that you needed to get the paladins out of their headquarters, so your reasoning in using the troops in our garrisons is understandable. So to see if your plan is worth this, we will let you continue your operation."

Azhule sighed as his posture visibly relaxed at this news, a faint smile dancing across her lips.

"However," Kaladorn interjected. "You will recieve no more aid from us."

Azhule's eyes widened at this, smile vanishing as though it had never been.

"What do you mean?" he asked in alarm.

"With the paladins on high alert, we cannot risk anyone to make any connections to us and your siege," Solginn answered in his same calm tone, as though commenting on the weather. "Thus, you are not allowed to make any contact with us at all until you complete your objective."

"No financial requests, no information updates, recruitment, or even a nod. You have nothing to do with us," Kerra elaborated. "If you succeed, then you will be forgiven. If you fail, then you'll get what you deserve and we never heard your name."

Azhule nodded in understanding, face pale with fear as a faint tremble manifested in his limbs.

"Very well. I will not fail you."

"See that you don't," Sarach snapped before the screen shut off.

"Well, I guess I'll have to hide my project for the time being," Kerra said nonchalantly.

"You might as well scrap it, Kerra, for all the use it is to us," Sarach said disgutedly.

"Sarach, it is very useful," Kerra simply responded in a wounded tone.

"How can finding out how to make humans want to have sex be useful at all? If anything, it will only boost how fast those humans reproduce so they can strengthen their military," Sarach snarled, fingers clenching as though to crush some invisible throat.

"The desire for sex, lust as it's called, is a physical and unavoidable emotion for all humans. They all cannot help but feel and respond to it. If we can control their lust, we can control them easily. Their own bodies' natural functions would be their downfall," Kerra responded primly.

Sarach merely huffed at this.

"If that were all that was necessary, succubae would have dominated Azeroth long before the Burning Legion re-invaded it," She dismissed, though a glint of fond amusement glittered in her eyes.

Kaladorn sighed as the two leaders bantered on.

_'How did they ever become members of the Five if all they do is argue?'_ He wondered.

* * *

><p>Ranma sighed as he restarted his game of solitaire on his helmet after another loss.<p>

_'I hate this game. Wish there was something else to do.'_

He, Jake, and Fumiko sat in the helicopter as it flew towards the area the survivors had indicated held whoever was controlling the Mindless. His heavy armor was identical to Jake's, differing only in weapons and runes. Ranma's armor had claws built into it. He didn't understand how that worked, even after Doc tried to explain it to him. Something about his runes being applied to it, or something. Other than that, the only other weaponry on it was his handgun, which was large enough to be used even with the armored gloves that came with his armor.

Fumiko's armor was different, not only in the runes decorating it, but also in that it was clear that any wearer of it was female; slender legs and arms, smaller waist, ect. However, it also clearly wasn't designed to be fan-service, which Ranma was unreasonably thankful for. It was built to take serious damage and protect the wearer, and it looked like it could. Her katana was sheathed and strapped to her left shin at an angle out of the way while still allowing her to draw it easily. Due to how small it was when she wore her armor, if she ever used it, it would most likely be as a dagger. Her sniper rifle lay next to her, leaning against the wall since it would be awkward to have it anywhere while she was sitting.

Fumiko was sleeping again, her head resting against the back of her seat, and Ranma still didn't have any desire to talk to Jake.

"We're approachin' the Deadlands. ETA: ten minutes," Doc called out.

Jake sighed out of boredom, and looked outside of the window for what had to be the hundredth time.

"Those survivors had better be right about this being the place," He muttered for what also had to be the hundredth time.

"Would ya shut up already? Just because you're bored out o' yo mind doesn't mean you have to share it with the rest o' us!" Doc bellowed.

"Hey I'm in my heavy armor, I have my guns locked and loaded, and I'm not shooting something. There's something wrong with that," Jake complained.

"Yeah. Your guns are loaded," Ranma said.

Jake glared at Ranma. At least, that's what Ranma assumed he was doing. The guess had more to do with the slight, menacing glow coming from his helmet's eyes than anything else.

"Hey, what are the Deadlands anyway?" Ranma asked. "Nobody told me when I asked earlier."

"Ok, well, here's your history lesson, Noobie," Jake said eager to have something to do other than be bored.

Then he looked at Fumiko's sleeping form.

"Hey, newb, wake up!" Jake shouted.

Fumiko barely stirred.

"Fumiko," Ranma said, poking her.

Still, Fumiko barely stirred.

"HEY, WAKE UP!" Jake bellowed.

Fumiko groaned a bit, but still showed no signs of waking up.

"Man," Ranma said amazed. "She is one heavy sleeper."

"Why don't you just hit her?" Jake suggested.

Ranma stared at Jake incredulously.

"What?" Ranma asked.

"If shouting at her and poking her ain't going to wake her up, why not give her a little punch. Not hard enough to actually hurt her, but enough to wake her up."

Ranma thought about that, but wasn't sure that he was comfortable with the idea of hitting Fumiko.

"I don't know."

"I could just set off one of my smaller bombs if you really don't want to."

"Oh, no yew don't, Hagner!" Doc shouted from the pilot seat. "Yew set off even one bomb in Esta and I'll stop helping you with that tank o' yours!"

"What about a small firework?"

"No."

"Well I'm out of ideas."

"Why don't I just shake her?" Ranma suggested.

Jake's head lowered in what Ranma thought was a sign of him considering the idea.

"I guess that could work. If that doesn't work though, punch her in the arm." Jake concided.

Ranma nodded, grasped Fumiko's shoulder and barely managed to stop a karate chop aimed for his throat from her.

"Oh." Fumiko said with a yawn. "Sorry. I didn't intend to-"

"It's all right," Ranma said. "I'm not dead."

Although Rama was sure that if the blow had landed, he would at least be in quite a bit of pain, making him quite pleased with his reflexes. Whatever he did when he was alive to get them, he was very thankful for.

"Uh, technically, you are dead," Jake said.

"Still, I'm sorry, Ranma." Fumiko insisted with a glare to melt steel directed at Jake. "I just...I don't know."

"Hey, don't sweat it," Ranma said cockily. "I'm fine."

"Anyways," Jake hurried on. "About that history lesson on the Deadlands you asked for. It all began when the Undead invaded Japan. It was near the beginning of the Invasion; Russia was practically taken over, China had been cut in two, and Europe was just beginning to engage.

Japan, as you know, is a small island, so the initial Undead attack was relatively small compared to the usual Undead attack forces. Most of the center coast was obliterated within a week before the CORE troops finally stopped them. Then, the Undead sent more forces. The whole country, aside from large cities and a few well situated military bases, became a war zone. Cities and villages were wasted, tops of mountains were flattened and littered with craters, forests were burned and buried, and lakes were either dried, drained, or simply became dump sites for bodies."

"That's horrible," Fumiko whispered.

"That's what happened," Jake said callously. "And that's what kept happening. The CORE troops and the rest of the Japanese military managed to hold off the Undead waves for most of the Invasion, making good use of the mountain ranges for guerrilla warfare, but when the enemy becomes stronger with every casualty from your side, you can only last for so long.

Anyways, long story short, the death knights came, saved everybody's trash, and helped everyone start rebuilding. To this day, there are still areas that the Undead messed up and torn apart from battle that haven't been repaired. Those areas are what everybody calls the Deadlands."

Ranma and Fumiko took a few moments to take in everything they had just heard.

"So the Deadlands are completely abandoned?" Ranma asked.

"Most of it, yeah, but there are a couple villages scattered all around the Deadlands. Some of them are infested with Undead, some of them are just people getting by, and others are completely lawless places where criminals from other villages and the big cities run to," Jake answered.

"Noobs and dick, we're entering the Deadlands," Doc announced grandly.

Ranma and Fumiko turned around to look outside their windows to see something that they did not expect at all from what the name or the history lesson from Jake implied. The mountains they saw were lush green and riddled with lakes, and the land below them seemed to be beautiful grasslands. Nothing seemed to imply that any kind of war took place.

"Uh," Ranma simply said.

"The war ended about ten years ago. Enough time for Mother Nature to green up again. Besides, how do you expect Undead towns to hide from satellites and airplanes in black lands with dead forests?" Jake said sardonically.

"How are we supposed to find the Undead guy in all that?" Ranma asked.

"Well the guy we're looking for is in the mountains. That being said, you and I are going to find him the old fashion way while Fums and Doc keep track of us from the air," Jake announced with sarcastic glee.

"Uh, when you say, old fashion way, do you mean we're going to look for him on foot?"

"Yup." Jake answered resigned.

Ranma simply stared at him.

"And it's just going to be us, and no one else is going to help us?"

"Normally we'd get help from the paladins when searching in the Deadlands, but since they're all short-staffed and paranoid, that's the case," Jake's tone was flat.

Ranma simply stared at him some more.

"You're joking," Ranma almost begged.

"I'd rather be back at the citadel working on my tank than doing this. The captain won't even let me use my flamethrower to help us out with this," Jake's tone was more suited to mourning a dead loved one.

Ranma's head drooped.

_'I'm really starting to hate this job.'_

**CHAPTER END.**

* * *

><p>Ranma: What! I got dazed? What the BLEEP is up with that!<p>

Me: Oh shut up. You'll get to fight someone in the next chapter.

Ranma: Am I going to lose again?

Jake: Actually, you didn't technically lose. You just tapped out with Ooks.

Fumiko: WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME?

Jake: What the- when did you- **OW!**

Me: Nice shot, Fumiko. Right in the calf.

Fumiko: It was point blank. How could I miss?

Ranma (whispering to me): Fumiko's getting scarier as I get to know her more.

Me (whispering to Ranma): Don't worry. As long as you treat her alright, and you don't call her Ooks, you'll be fine.

Nakia: Hey, what're you all doing here?

Me, Ranma, Jake, and Fumiko: Nothing!


End file.
